Carex sartwellii Dewey

Stems 3–8 dm, scattered on long, coarse, dark rhizomes, strongly aphyllopodic, the lvs well distributed along the lower half of the stem, flat, 2–5 mm wide; sheaths elongate and firm, the ventral part tending to be partly greenish or greenish-striate; spikes numerous; 20+, sessile, inconspicuously bracteate (or the lowest one more evidently so), androgynous or some wholly staminate or wholly pistillate, the middle ones, especially, often staminate, ovoid, ca 1 cm or less, closely crowded into a ± cylindric to sometimes ovoid infl 2–5 cm (only the lowest ones somewhat separate); pistillate scales usually pale brown to stramineous; perigynia 2.3–4 mm, broadly lanceolate to round-ovate or ± elliptic, planoconvex, sharp-edged, tending to be serrulate distally, evidently several-nerved dorsally, usually less so ventrally, spongy at the base, ± abruptly contracted into the short (0.4–1 mm), minutely bidentate beak; achene lenticular; 2n=62. Wet meadows, open swamps, and shallow water; N.Y. and Ont. to B.C., s. to Ind., Mo., and Colo.