Liddon Sedge

See comment under 125. Carex xerantica.

Plants densely cespitose. Culms 30–85 cm. Leaves: sheaths adaxially white-hyaline, summits U-shaped, prolonged more than 2.8 mm; distal ligules 2–5 mm; blades (2–)3–4 per fertile culm, 10–30(–40) cm × 2–4(–5) mm. Inflorescences open, stiffly erect, green, gold, or pale brown, (2–)2.5–4.5(–6) cm × 9–16 mm; proximal internode 4.5–9 mm; 2d internode (2–)5–9(–11) mm; proximal bracts scalelike, awn shorter than inflorescences. Spikes (3–)4–7, distant, distinct, fusiform, ovoid, or obovoid, 15–27 × 5.5–9 mm, base tapered to attenuate, apex acute or rounded. Pistillate scales whitish green or gold, with greenish to gold midstripe, lanceolate or ovate, 5.8–7.6 mm, ± equaling perigynia, concealing beaks, margin white, 0.2–0.7 mm wide, apex acute to acuminate. Staminate scales with white-hyaline margin (0.2–)0.3–0.7 mm wide. Perigynia appressed to ascending, whitish green to brown, conspicuously 10–19-veined abaxially, conspicuously 4–10-veined adaxially, at least 3 adaxially veins longer than achene, lanceolate to ovate, plano-convex, 6–8 × 1.7–2.4 mm, 0.5–0.9 mm thick, margin flat, including wing (0.2–)0.3–0.5 mm wide, ciliate-serrulate at least distally; beak green, red-brown, brown, or gold, white-hyaline at tip, cylindric, unwinged, ± entire to 1 mm or flat, ± ciliate-serrulate, abaxial suture with conspicuous white margin, distance from beak tip to achene (2.8–)3.2–4.6 mm. Achenes elliptic to ovte-elliptic, 2.2–3 × (1.1–)1.3–1.8 mm, 0.5–0.7 mm thick.

Fruiting summer. Dry to wet meadows, grasslands, open woods; 500 m to timberline; Alta., B.C., N.W.T., Sask., Yukon; Alaska, Ariz., Calif., Colo., Idaho, Mont., Nev., Oreg., Utah, Wash., Wyo.

Carex liddonii Boott

Carex petasata Dewey, Am. Jour. Sei. 29: 246 pi. W,f. 72. 1836.
Carex Liddoni Boon, in Hook. Fl. Bor. Am. 2: 214. 1839. (Type from Columbia River.) Carex rufo-variegata Bock. Cyp. Nov. 2: 33. 1890. (Type from Lytton, British Columbia.)
Cespitose, the rootstocks short-prolonged, black, fibrillose, the culms 3-8 dm. high, exceeding the leaves, slender to base but strict, obtusely triangular below, sharply triangular above, smooth or nearly so, brownish at base and conspicuously clothed with the dried-up leaves of the previous year, the lower bladeless; leaves with well-developed blades 2-5 to a fertile culm, on lower third or fourth, but not bunched, the blades light-green, firm, flat, usually 7-20 cm. long, 2-3 mm. wide, roughened towards apex, the sheaths tight, white-hyaline ventrally, thin and short-prolonged beyond base of blade and continuous with ligule; blades of sterile shoots similar; inflorescence consisting of 3-6 gynaecandrous spikes aggregated into an erect head 2-4 cm. long, 1-1.5 cm. thick, the spikes ovoid-oblong, S-I6 mm. long (or the terminal longer), 6-9 mm wide, rounded at apex, the lateral with a few inconspicuous staminate flowers, and short-tapering at base, the terminal often strongly clavate, the rather numerous perigynia somewhat loose, closely appressed, with erect beaks; bracts scale-like or the lowest occasionally short-prolonged; scales ovate, light-reddish-brown, with lighter 1-3-nerved center and broad silvery-white-hyaline margins, acute, about as long and as wide as the perigynia above and largely concealing them; perigynia plano-convex, oblong-lanceolate, widest near top of achene, 6-S mm. long, 2.25 mm. wide, strongly dilated over achene, submembranaceous, brownish-green or at maturity yellowish-brown, rather narrowly wing-margined to base, the margins slightly raised and serrulate to below the middle, strongly but slenderly many-striate on both faces, substipitate, tapering and spongy at base, tapering into a beak scarcely 2 mm. long, obliquely cut dorsally, reddish-brown-tinged, serrulate below, and terete, hyaline-tipped and smooth above, shallowly bidentate; achenes lenticular, oblong, 2.5-3 mm. long, 1.5 mm. wide, substipitate, apiculate, brownish, shining; style straight, slender, jointed with achene, at length deciduous; stigmas two, slender, reddish-brown.
Type locality: "Found on the Rocky Mountains."
Distribution: Meadows and open woods. Saskatchewan to Colorado, and westward to Nevada, eastern Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia. (Specimens examined from Colorado, Wyoming, Montana. Saskatchewan. Alberta. Idaho. Utah. Nevada. Oregon, Washington. British Columbia.)

Carex petasata is a species of sedge known by the common name Liddon sedge.