Plants not cespitose. Culms obtusely angled, 6–35 cm, glabrous. Leaves: basal sheaths brown; sheaths of proximal leaves glabrous, fronts lacking spots and veins, apex U-shaped; blades amphistomic, 2–3 mm wide, papillose on both surfaces. Proximal bract longer than inflorescence, 1.5–4 mm wide. Spikes erect; staminate 1–2; pistillate 2–4; proximal pistillate spike 1–3.1 cm × 2–5 mm, base cuneate. Pistillate scales brown, 2.5–8 × 1–1.7 mm (including awn), wider than perigynia, midvein reaching apex, 1/3–1/2 the width of scale, apex acute or acuminate, often aristate, awn glabrous or scabrous. Perigynia ascending, pale brown, incompletely 0–3-veined on each face, somewhat inflated, loosely enclosing achenes, ellipsoid, (2–)2.5–3.3 × 1.2–1.9 mm, dull, base with stipe to 0.2 mm, apex acute, short-papillose; beak cylindric to conic, 0.2–0.4 × 0.3–0.4 mm. Achenes deeply constricted on 1 face, apex truncate to retuse, glossy; style base bent, rarely straight. 2n = 77, 78, 79.
More
Much like no. 188 [Carex paleacea Wahlenb.], more tufted, but still producing long rhizomes; main lvs 2–5 mm wide, involute in age; spikes all ± erect, the lower short-peduncled, the upper sessile or nearly so; pistillate scales ovate to lanceolate, the purple-brown body usually longer than the perigynia, retuse to acute, the green midvein often prolonged into a short awn; perigynia 1.9–3.3 mm, strongly 2-ribbed, otherwise nerveless or obscurely nerved; 2n=78–83. Saline or brackish marshes along the coast; circumboreal, s. in Amer. to Mass. and James Bay. (C. recta; C. subspathacea) Said to consist at least in considerable part of a series of variably fertile or sterile hybrids between no. 188 and members of the Acutae, but now ± stable and forming large populations.
Home
