Wheat Sedge

Carex atherodes is a major wetland species in portions of the Midwest and West and becomes increasingly uncommon and local in the eastern portions of its range. It forms large clones and can tolerate deeper water than most Carex. Glabrous forms occur and seem to be more common in the western portion of the range.

Carex atherodes rarely hybridizes with C. trichocarpa.

Culms hollow, ± spongy near base, trigonous in cross section, 35–125 cm; vegetative culms hollow, flattened when pressed, taller than fertile culms. Leaves: basal sheaths reddish purple, inner bands fibrillose with age; sheaths with apex of inner band pale brown to dull reddish purple, pubescent or scabrous, at least apically, rarely glabrous; ligules (6–)11–45 mm; blades 3–10 mm wide, usually sparsely to moderately long-pubescent, finely papillose abaxially, glabrous adaxially. Inflorescences 12–60 cm; spikes erect or ascending; proximal 2–5 spikes pistillate; terminal (1–)2–6 spikes staminate. Pistillate scales lanceolate to narrowly ovate, apex acute, conspicuously scabrous-awned, glabrous or scabrous near midrib. Staminate scales lanceolate to narrowly ovate, apex obtuse to acuminate, scabrous-awned, glabrous or, rarely, sparsely pubescent. Perigynia 12–21-veined, (6.5–)7–12 × 1.8–3.8 mm, glabrous; beak 2.1–4 mm, glabrous (rarely few spreading hairs on main veins), teeth spreading to outcurved, (1.2–)1.5–3 mm.

Alta., B.C., Man., N.W.T., Ont., Que., Sask., Yukon; Alaska, Ariz., Calif., Colo., Idaho, Ill., Ind., Iowa, Maine, Mich., Minn., Mo., Mont., Nebr., Nev., N.Mex., N.Y., N.Dak., Ohio, Oreg., Pa., S.Dak., Utah, Vt., Va., Wash., W.Va., Wis., Wyo.; Eurasia.

Fruiting Jun–Aug.

Marshes, wet prairies and meadows, open swamps, wet, open thickets, open stream, pond, and lakeshores, ditches, often in water (to 60–80 cm deep); 50–2800m.

Carex atherodes Spreng. Syst. 3: 827. 1826
Carex aristata R. Br.; Richards, in Frankl. Journey 751. 1823. (Type from 54°-64°, northwestern
Canada.) Not C. aristata Honck. 1792. Carex mirata Dewey, in Wood, Class-Book ed. 2. 593. 1847. (Type from Lake Ontario, New York.) Carex vesicaria X hirta Wimmer, Denks. Fiinfzigjahr. Best. Schles. Ges. 150. 1853. (Type from
Germany.) Carex mirata var. minor Dewey, Am. Jour. Sci. II. 39: 73. 1865. (Type from Belleville, Ontario.) Carex Siegerliana Uechtr. Verh. Bot. Ver. Prov. Brand. 8: 103. 1866. (Type from Russia.) Carex trichocarpa var. itnberbis A. Gray, Man. ed. 5. 597. 1867. (Type from Penn Yan, New York.) Carex trichocarpa var. aristata L. H. Bailey, Bot. Gaz. 10: 294. 1885. (Based on C. aristata R. Br.) Carex aristata var. Browniana Asch. Ber. Deuts. Bot. Ges. 6: 290. 1888. (Based on C. arw/a/a R.
Br.) Carex aristata var. cujavica Asch. & Sprib.; Asch. Ber. Deuts. Bot. Ges. 6: 290. 1888. (Type from
Russia.) Carex aristata var. Siegertiana Asch. Ber. Deuts. Bot. Ges. 6: 290. 1888. (Based on C. Siegerliana
Uechtr.) Carex aristata var. Kirschteiniana Asch., Graebn. & Kukenth. ; Asch. Verh. Bot. Ver. Prov. Brand.
41 : lxvii. 1900. (Type from northeastern Germany.) Carex aristata subsp. trichocarpa var. itnberbis "A. Gray," Kukenth. in Engler, Pflanzenreich 4 20 : 754.
1909. (Based on C. trichocarpa var. imberbis A. Gray.) Carex trichocarpa aristata confusa Bates, Univ. Stud. Neb. 14: 13. 1914. (Type from Kennedy,
Cherry County, Nebraska.) Carex aristata var. imberbis Farwell, Am. Midi. Nat. 8: 266. 1923. (Based on C. trichocarpa var.
imberbis A. Gray.)
Loosely cespitose and stoloniferous, the stolons long, horizontal, slender, tough, scaly, the culms 3-15 dm. high, usually stout, shorter than or exceeding the leaves, aphyllopodic, sharply triangular, smooth, purplish-tinged at base, the basal sheaths breaking and becoming conspicuously filamentose; sterile shoots very conspicuous, very elongate, the leaves largely bunched at top ; leaves with well-developed blades few to several to a fertile culm, not clustered at base, strongly septate-nodulose, the blades flat, thin, dull-green, 1-5 dm. long, 3-12 mm. wide, glabrous above, all or at least the lower sparsely hairy below toward the base, longattenuate, roughened above, the sheaths long, soft-hairy, dull-brown ventrally, breaking and becoming more or less filamentose, deeply concave and brownish-tinged or purplish-tinged at mouth, the ligule very conspicuous, longer than wide; staminate spikes 2-6, erect, the upper contiguous, the lower more or less separate, rarely with a few perigynia, narrowly linear, slender, 4-10 cm. long, 3-5 mm. wide, the scales oblanceolate, short-ciliate, rough-arista te, light yellowish-brown with lighter center and narrow dull-white margins, pistillate spikes 2-4, erect, widely separate, short-peduncled or nearly sessile, narrowly cylindric, 5-12 cm. long, 8-15 mm. wide, closely 30-100-flowered, the uppermost often staminate at apex, the perigynia ascending-spreading in several to many rows; bracts leaf -like, the lowest strongly sheathing, exceeding the culm; scales ovate, abruptly rough-aristate, short-ciliate, narrower than and the lower longer and the upper rather shorter than the perigynia, dull-reddish-brown with 3nerved green center and hyaline margins; perigynia lanceolate or ovoid-lanceolate, 7-10 mm. long, 2 mm. wide; suborbicular in cross-section, somewhat inflated, subcoriaceous, yellowishgreen or light-brownish, strongly many-ribbed, rounded at base, short-stipitate, tapering into a strongly bidentate smooth beak, the teeth about the length of the body, slender, ascending to widely spreading, 1.2-3 mm. long, smooth within; achenes obovoid, 2.5 mm. long, 1.25 mm. wide, triangular with sides concave below and blunt angles, loosely enveloped, yellowishbrown, substipitate, round-tapering above, continuous with the straight or flexuous, slender, persistent style; stigmas 3, slender, long, blackish.
Type locality: "Amer. arctic (C. aristata R. Br.)."
Distribution: Marshes in calcareous districts, Ontario to Yukon, and southward to western New York, Indiana, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, and Oregon; also widely distributed in northern Eurasia. (Specimens examined from New York, Ontario, Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, Mackenzie, Yukon.)

Carex atherodes is a species of sedge known by the common name wheat sedge. It is native to Eurasia and much of North America including most of Canada and the United States. It is a very common wetland plant across the American Midwest and areas west. It grows in moist and wet habitat, such as marshes and moist prairie land, and it may grow in shallow water. This sedge produces triangular, hollow stems 30 to 120 centimeters tall. The leaves are hairy, especially on the lower parts, and the leaf sheath is tinted with reddish purple. The inflorescence is up to 60 centimeters long and made up of several spikes; those spikes near the tip are usually staminate, and those lower in the inflorescence are usually pistillate. The tip of each fruit has two or more long, thin teeth.