Olney's Hairy Sedge

Sporadic sterile hybrids between Carex gynodynama and C. mendocinensis are well documented. A reported hybrid with C. hendersonii needs further study to confirm parentage.

Plants densely cespitose. Culms reddish brown to dark maroon at base; flowering stems 20–70 cm, much longer than leaves at maturity, 1–1.7 mm thick, glabrous or sparsely pilose. Leaves: basal sheaths reddish brown, bladeless, pilose; others grading from dark red to green on back, tan-hyaline on front, reddish brown dotted and usually pubescent at apex; blades flat, 3–12 mm wide, usually pilose, more densely so abaxially, margins ciliate. Inflorescences: peduncles of lateral spikes, when present, less than 10 mm, often pubescent; proximal bracts usually shorter than inflorescence; sheaths 5–50 mm; blades 1.2–2 mm wide. Lateral spikes 2–5, 1 per node, usually crowded toward apex and overlapping staminate spike, erect, sessile or pedunculate, pistillate with 20–40 perigynia attached less than 1 mm apart, cylindric, 12–40 × 4–11 mm. Terminal spike staminate, rarely gynecandrous, sessile or very short-pedunculate, 8–30 × 2–5.5 mm. Pistillate scales reddish brown with narrow white-hyaline margins and green midrib, broadly ovate, shorter than mature perigynia, apex obtuse to short-cuspidate, often pubescent on midrib and awn, ciliate distally. Perigynia pale green, blotched with dark maroon at base, dark maroon-brown distally, 2-ribbed and finely veined with to 20 veins, most conspicuous near base, loosely enveloping achene, ellipsoid, 3.7–5.3 × 1–2.2 mm, membranous, base acute, apex narrowing to beak, body covered with long, appressed to spreading hairs; beak bidentate, 1 mm. Achenes substipitate, 2–2.6 × 1.2–1.7 mm. 2n = 50, 52.

Calif., Oreg.

Fruiting late spring–early summer.

Seeps, stream banks, roadside ditches, wet meadows and slopes, coastal prairies, mixed evergreen forest along the Pacific Coast; 0–600m.

Carex gynodynama Olney, Proc. Am. Acad. 7: 394. 1868
Carex Blankinshipii Fernald, Erythea 7: 121. 1899. (Type from Hydesville, Humboldt County, California.)
Densely cespitose and not stoloniferous, the culms 2-9 dm. high, slender, spreading, much exceeding the leaves, mostly lateral and phyllopodic, some central, bluntly triangular with concave sides, smooth on angles or nearly so, brownish or slightly purplish-tinged at base ; sterile shoots conspicuous, somewhat elongate; leaves with well-developed blades 6-12 to a fertile culm on the central culms or fewer on the lateral, the lower clustered, the upper somewhat scattered, the blades flat, flaccid, light-green, soft, sparsely soft-villous, 1-5 dm. long, 3-9 mm. wide, somewhat roughened towards apex, the sheaths long, tight, soft-hairy, yellowishbrown-tinged ventrally, concave at mouth, the ligule as long as wide ; terminal spike staminate or often with a few perigynia, erect, overtopped or largely so by the uppermost pistillate spike, sessile or short-peduncled, 1-2 cm. long, 3-6 mm. wide, the scales obovate, more or less hairy, obtuse or mucronate, light-reddish-brown with lighter center and conspicuous whitehyaline margins; pistillate spikes 2-4, the 2 upper approximate, short-peduncled, the lower 1 or 2 widely separate, erect, on slender, usually long-exserted, sparingly hairy peduncles, the spikes oblong-cylindric, 1-3.5 cm. long, 6-9 mm. wide, containing 20-40 closely packed ascending perigynia in several rows; bracts strongly sheathing, leaflet-like, exceeded by inflorescence, the sheaths 0.5-4 cm. long; scales very broadly ovate or obovate, more or less soft-hairy above, the lower abruptly short-cuspidate, the upper often obtuse, chocolate-brown with 3-nerved green center and conspicuous white-hyaline margins, wider but shorter than perigynia; perigynia narrowly oblong-obovoid, 4.5-5.5 mm. long, 2 mm. wide, somewhat triangular and flattened, scarcely inflated, membranaceous, yellowish-brown and red-dotted, short-pilose toward apex, finely many-nerved, round-tapering at base and stipitate, rounded and abruptly beaked at apex, the beak conic, 0.5-1 mm. long, hyaline at mouth, shallowly bidentate; achenes obovoid, 2.5 mm. long, 1.75 mm. wide, triangular with concave sides and thickened angles, yellowish-brown, granular, in lower three fourths of perigynia, rather closely enveloped, somewhat stipitate, slender, apiculate, jointed with the straight slender style; stigmas 3, slender, reddish-brown.
Type locality: "California, near Mendocino City" (Bolander 4700).
Distribution: Moist places in the Coast Ranges, from southern Oregon to San Mateo County, California. (Specimens examined showing the above range.)