Carex vulpinoidea Michx.
-
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
-
Description
Species Description - Stems stout, clustered, 3–10 dm, aphyllopodic; lvs scattered along the lower half or two-thirds of the stem, flat or nearly so, 2–5 mm wide; ventral side of the sheaths sparsely red- dotted and usually conspicuously cross-rugulose; spikes androgynous, numerous, sessile, small, few-fld, densely aggregated into an often irregular or interrupted infl that is 5–10 cm long, to 1.5 cm wide, and generally compound at least toward the base; upper spikes hardly distinguishable; bracts small, setaceous, only the lower ones sometimes elongate to 5 cm; pistillate scales slender, the firm midrib excurrent as an often greenish awn 1–5 mm; perigynia flattened or planoconvex, ± stramineous to light brown or partly greenish, 2–3.5 mm, the body narrowly ovate to rotund-ovate, nerveless or inconspicuously few-nerved, serrulate-margined distally; achene lenticular; 2n=52. In marshes and other wet low places; Nf. to Fla., w. to B.C., Wash., and Ariz. The widespread var. vulpinoidea usually has the lvs surpassing the stems; the perigynium tapers into a prominent beak sometimes as long as the body. (C. setacea) The var. ambigua Boott, mainly in our coastal states, but also inland nearly throughout our range, has the lvs mostly surpassed by the stems; the relatively broad perigynia are more abruptly contracted to the short beak to half as long as the body. (C. annectens)