Ryegrass Sedge

Plants loosely cespitose; rhizomes long, slender. Culms erect, weak, 15–40 cm. Leaves: sheaths pale brown abaxially, inner band tight, hyaline, truncate; ligules short, as wide as long; blades pale green, flat, 5–15 cm × 1–2 mm. Inflorescences erect, 1–2.5 cm × 4–6 mm; proximal bracts scalelike, usually 2–8 mm, shorter than spikes. Spikes 2–5, gynecandrous, the proximal remote, proximal 2 at least 1 cm apart, the distal approximate, with 3–8 perigynia, suborbicular. Pistillate scales white-hyaline with green midrib, ovate, clearly shorter than perigynia, apex obtuse. Perigynia pale green or pale brown in age, conspicuously many-veined, obovate-elliptic, 2.5–3.5 × 1.25–1.5 mm, subcoriaceous; beak absent. Achenes red-brown, oblong-elliptic, 1.75 × 1 mm, glossy. 2n = 54.

Alta., B.C., Man., N.W.T., Ont., Sask., Yukon; Alaska; Eurasia.

Fruiting Jun–Jul.

Mires, wet forests, mossy stream banks, lowlands; 0–1000m.

Carex loliacea L. Sp. PI. 974. 1753
—Carex sibirica Spreng. Syst 3: 809. 1826. (Type from Siberia.) Xeskiza loliacea Raf. Good Book 27. 1840. (Based on Carex loliacea L.)
Loosely cespitose, sending forth long, very slender, light-brown stolons, the culms weak, very slender, 2-4 dm. high, triangular, exceeding the leaves, slightly roughened beneath the head, brownish-tinge I at base and clothed with the dried-up leaves of the previous year; leaves with well-developed blades 4—8 to a fertile culm, on the lower third but not bunched, the blades flat, soft, deep-green, usually 5-10 cm. long 'the sterile-culm leaves longer) 0.5-2 mm. wide, roughened towards the attenuate apex, the sheaths tight, hyaline and thin, ventrally prolonged beyond base of blade and continuous with ligule; spikes 2-5, gynaecandrous, the 1'' the upper contiguous, forming a strict but interrupted head 1-2.5 cm.
long, 4-6 mm. thick, the spikes suborbicular, rounded at apex, rounded or in the uppermost more or leas clavate at base, containing 3-8 loosely ascending or at length strongly spreading perigynia above ami the inconspicuous staminate flowers beneath; lower bract usually shortprolonged, 2-8 mm. long, the up scale", ovate, thin, white hyaline with green midrib, sharply keeled, obtuse or .ictitish, nearly as widl I DS perigynia. but only half their length, perigynia thick-planoconvex, narrowly elliptic. 2.5 3 mm. long, 1.4 mm. wide, subcoriaceous, light green, rounded on the margins below, slightly sharp edged aboVl .
fineb. ribbed on both idi , denselj •■. hit punctate, minutelj itipitate,
round-tapering and pering and often ilightlj narrowed al apex, beakless;
achenes lenticular, closely enveloped, short oblong, slightrj substipitate, brownish, minutely
truncately apiculate, 1 .75 mm, long, I mm wide, style Verj 1h.iI, jointed With achi length decidn two, light reddish-brown, slender,
Tffl LOCALITY: "Habitat in Su> ■
d lbella,
distributed in ■ uunini dfroi British I olumbia, II
in i ,i. , i j i I'll ,n/. nreii b
f.36G-K; Joar.VLn i Bot 1911:72 I 6, iturtn Deul Pi 69 pi !, Reichenfa [i PI Germ Bi pi. 21 1. f $59; Anderss Cyp. Scand /</ I 111 PI. Mittel-Eur / "/, .-. Bot pi. 664,
Haiiur, Deuts, PI. pi '• '. Cars! I ■' /

Carex loliacea is a species of flowering plant belonging to the family Cyperaceae.

Its native range is Northern and Eastern Central Europe to Japan, Subarctic America to Canada.