Grassy Slope Arctic Sedge

Plants not cespitose, long-rhizomatous. Culms 5–40 cm. Leaves flat, straight, 1.5–2.5 mm wide. Spike pistillate, or staminate, or, rarely, androgynous. Pistillate scales shorter than to equaling the perigynia, beak and distalmost body of perigynia exposed, apex obtuse to cuspitate. Perigynia 3–4 mm, distal margins smooth; beak tip dark.

B.C., Yukon; Alaska, Wash.; Eurasia [Russian Far East (Chukotka)].

Fruiting Jun–Aug.

Bogs, wet meadows; 10–1000m.

Carex anthoxanthea Presl, Rel. Haenk. 1: 203. 1828
Car«xJe:ocar/)aC. A. Meyer, Mem. Acad. St. -Petersb.Sav. Etr. 1:208. pi. 5. 1831. (Type from
Unalaska.) Carex anthoxanthea var. leiocarpa Kiikenth. in Engler, Pflanzenreich 4'"': 97. 1909. (Based on C. leio-
carpa C. A. Meyer.)
Rootstocks tough, slender, long-creeping, light-yellowish-brown, very scaly, the culms slender, 0.5-4 dm. high, erect, obtusely triangular, arising singly, usually exceeding the leaves, roughened above, aphyllopodic and light-yellowish-brown at base, the dried-up leaves of the previous year conspicuous; leaves with well-developed blades usually 2-4 to a culm, inserted towards the base, the blades deep-green, thickish, flat, 4—40 cm. long, 1.5-2.5 mm. wide, sometimes very long and slender, erect or more or less recurved, roughened at the attenuate apex, the sheaths tight, truncate at mouth, the lower conspicuously striate dorsally, the ligule very short, much wider than long; spike solitary, 1-3 cm. long, 3-4 mm. wide, usually entirely pistillate or sometimes androg>'nous or entirely staminate; perigynia 6-12, erect-ascending, the lowermost alternate, the upper overlapping; bracts none; lowest pistillate scales ovatelanceolate, cuspidate or even awned, the upper broadly obovate and very obtuse, chestnutbrown with broad 1-3-nerved straw-colored or greenish center, the lower exceeding, the upper exceeded by the perigynia; staminate scales similar; perigynia spindle-shaped, not inflated, obscurely compressed-triangular in cross-section, 4 mm. long, 1.5 mm. wide, yellowishgreen, membranaceous, smooth, lightly many-nerved, short-stipitate, tapering at base, and tapering at apex into a smooth, short (0.5-1 mm. long), chestnut-brown-tinged beak, with obliquely cleft orifice; achenes rather closely enveloped, triangular with obtuse angles, oblongobovoid, 1.5 mm. long, 1 mm. wide, apiculate, jointed with the slender, slightly flexuous, strongly exserted, deciduous style; stigmas three, rarely two, brownish, slender.
Type locality: "Hab. in Nootka-Sund."
Distribution : Along or near the northwestern coast of North America, from British Columbia to the Pribilof and Shumagin islands, growing on grassy banks. (Specimens examined from Queen Charlotte Islands, British Columbia, Alaska (coast).)