Carex utriculata Boott

Colonial by long, stout, deep-seated creeping rhizomes, sometimes forming a dense sod; stems 5–12 dm, bluntly trigonous, smoother than in no. 220 [Carex bullata Willd.]; lvs septate-nodulose (especially the sheaths), flat, yellow-green, smooth above, the larger ones 5–12 mm wide; lvs subtending the pistillate spikes nearly or quite sheathless, but at least the lowest one with an elongate blade 1–2 times as long as the infl; spikes several, remote, forming an elongate infl, ± erect, the upper ones staminate and 2–7 cm, the lower pistillate, 2–10 cm, ca 1(–1.5) cm thick at maturity, only the lowest one sometimes evidently pedunculate; pistillate scales narrower and usually shorter than the perigynia, acutish to more often acuminate or short-awned; perigynia densely crowded, mostly in 8+ vertical rows, widely spreading at maturity, glabrous, shining, ± strongly 8–16-nerved, 4–7 mm, the inflated, broadly ellipsoid to ovoid or subglobose body rather abruptly contracted to an evident smooth beak 1–2 mm with short (0.2–0.8 mm) teeth; achene yellowish, trigonous, 1.3–2 mm, loose in the lower half of the perigynium, its persistent, bony style becoming strongly flexuous or contorted with maturity; 2n=82. Wet soil or shallow water; boreal Amer., s. to Del., Ind., Nebr., N.M., and Calif. (C. rostrata, misapplied)

Open swamps, wet thickets, marshes, sedge meadows, bogs, fens, stream, pond, and lakeshores; at elevations from sea level to 3,500 metres.

Can be grown by cuttings or seedlings.