Curly Sedge

Carex rupestris All. Fl. Pad. 2: 264. pi. 92, f. i. 1785
Carex pelraea Wahl. Sv. Vet.-Akad. Nya Handl. 24: 139. 1803. (Type from northern Lapland.) Carex Dufourei Lapeyr. Hist. Abr. PI. Pyr. Suppl. 140. 1818. (Type from the Pyrenees Mountains,
southwestern Europe.) Carex atleniiata R. Br. ; Richards, in Frankl. Journey 750. 1823. (Type from Mackenzie. Canada.) Edrilria pelraea Raf. Good Book 26. 1840. (Based on Carex pelraea Wahl.) Edrilria rupeslris Raf. Good Book 26. 1840. (Based on Carex rupestris All.) "Carex supinaVJiUd." Boiss. Fl. Orient. 5: 414. in part. 1882. Caricinella rupestris vSt.-Lag. in Cariot, Etude Fl. ed. 8. 2 : 882. 1889. (Based on Carex rupestris All.)
Loosely cespitose and freely stoloniferous, the rootstocks long, very slender but tough, brownish or blackish, scaly, the culms 41 5 cm. high, sharply triangular and usually rough above, shorter than or exceeding the leaves, slender but wiry, purplish-tinged at base, the dried-up leaves of the previous year very conspicuous, the lowest sheaths bladeless; leaves with welldeveloped blades 8-12 to a fertile culm, clustered near the base, the blades yellowish-green, stiff, spreading or recurved, canaliculate, very long (2-12 cm.) and very slender (1-3, usually about 1.5 mm. wide, attenuate and circinate at apex, the tip early dried and browned, the sheaths tight, hyaline ventrally, truncate at mouth, the ligule about as wide as long; spike solitary, androgynous, bractless, 1-2 cm. long, 1.5-3 mm. wide, the upper half or two thirds staminate, the lower part pistillate, loosely or closely flowered, the perigynia 3-8, closely erect-ascending; staminate scales obovate, thin, obtuse, chestnut-brown with lighter midveiii and white-hyaline margins; pistillate scales similar but broadly ovate, shorter than body of perigynia at maturity, wider below and half enveloping the perigynia, the lowest often mucronate; perig>-nia oblong-obovoid, triangular, 3-4 mm. long, 1.5 mm. wide, membranaceous, greenish-straw-colored, brownish-tinged, 2-keeled, lightly few-nerved, glabrous, more or less shining, tapering at base, abruptly contracted into a short beak 0.25-0.5 mm. long, terete, blackish-tinged, the margins smooth or roughish, the apex hyaline, truncate; achenes oblongoval, sharply triangular, with flat sides, rather closely enveloped, dark-chestnut-brown, 2.25 mm. long, 1.5 mm. wide, tapering at base, sessile, abruptly short-apiculate; style rather short, thickish, conspicuously protruding, jointed with achene and deciduous; stigmas 3, slender, dark-chestnut-brown, rather long.
Type locality: "In summis alpium jugis di Ussey prope L'Antaret locus siccis & rupestribus." (Piedmont.)
Distribution: Arctic-alpine, in limestone regions in dry, sunny places, Greenland to Alaska, and southward to Quebec and the Canadian Rockies. (Specimens examined from Greenland, Ellesmereland. Labrador, Newfoundland, eastern Quebec.)