Carex acutiformis Ehrh.

  • Authority

    Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

  • Family

    Cyperaceae

  • Scientific Name

    Carex acutiformis Ehrh.

  • Description

    Species Description - Stems stout, 5–15 dm, arising singly or few together from long, stout, scaly rhizomes, aphyllopodic, but clothed at the base with the dried-up lf-bases of the previous year; lower sheaths soon breaking and becoming fibrillose; main lvs 5–8 mm wide; ligule about as long as wide; staminate spikes 2–4; pistillate spikes 2–5, widely separate, cylindric, 3–8 cm × 7 mm, densely fld, erect, sessile or short-peduncled; bracts sheathless or nearly so, the lowest one elongate and lf-like, the upper much reduced; pistillate scales lanceolate, to about as long as the perigynia, acute to acuminate or short- awned; perigynia broadly and obtusely ovoid-trigonous, glabrous but dull, with numerous ± evidently raised nerves, 2.5–4.5 mm, narrowed to a short beak with obscure triangular teeth wider than long; achene trigonous, continuous with the short, straight, slender style; 2n=38, 78. Native of Eurasia and Afr., intr. in wet meadows here and there in our range, as in Mass. and Ind.