Prairie Straw Sedge

Plants cespitose; rhizomes appearing elongate in old clumps. Culms uniformly slender, 40–80 cm; vegetative culms few, inconspicuous, usually fewer than 15 leaves, not strikingly 3-ranked. Leaves: sheaths adaxially conspicuously green-veined nearly to collar, narrow hyaline band or sharp Y-shaped region at collar, adaxially firm, summits U-shaped; distal ligules 1.6–3.3 mm; blades 2–5 per fertile culm, 12–18 cm × 1.5–2.5 mm. Inflorescences stiffly erect, dense to slightly open, brown, 1.5–3(–3.5) cm × 6–14 mm; proximal internode 2–12 mm; 2d internode 2–7 mm; proximal bracts scalelike, often with bristletips shorter than or equaling inflorescences. Spikes 2–5, distant, distinct, ovoid, 7–12 × 4–7 mm, base rounded or short-acute, apex acute. Pistillate scales reddish brown, 1-veined midstripe sometimes pale, broadly lanceolate, 2.7–3.6 mm, shorter and narrower than perigynia, apex firm, acute to acuminate. Perigynia 15–80 in larger spikes, appressed, usually golden brown, conspicuously 6–9-veined abaxially, inconspicuously veined adaxially, diamond shaped, flat except over achene, 4–5 × 2–2.8 mm, 0.4–0.5 mm thick, base subacute or acute, margin flat, including wing 0.6–0.9 mm wide, smooth; beak apprressed, golden brown at tip, flat, 0.7–1.6(–1.8) mm, 2/5+ length of body, ciliate-serrulate, abaxial suture with hyaline, golden brown margin, distance from beak tip to achene 2–3 mm. Achenes elliptic to ovate, 1.5–1.7 × 0.8–1.1 mm, 0.3–0.4 mm thick. 2n = 72.

Ont.; Ark., Ill., Ind., Iowa, Mich., Minn., Mo., Ohio, Tex., Va., Wis., W.Va.

Fruiting early summer.

Calcareous fens and seeps, shores, swales; 100–600m.

Carex tenera Dewey var. suberecta Olney, Caric. Bor.-Amer., 3. 1871

Carex suberecta (Olney) Britton, Man. ed. 2. 1057. 1905
Carex foenea var. i Boott, 111. Carex 118. pi. 376. 1862. (Type from Ohio.)
Carex foenea var. ferruginea A. Gray, Man. ed. 5. 580. 1867. (Type from Ohio.) Not C. fer-
ruginea Scop. 1772. Carex tenera var. suberecta Olney, Caric. Bor.-Am. 3. 1871. (Based on C. foenea var. |3 Boott.) Carex straminea var. ferruginea L. H. Bailey, Bull. Torrey Club 20: 421. 1893. (Based on C.
foenea var. ferruginea A. Gray.) Carex alata var. ferruginea Fernald, Proc. Am. Acad. 37: 477. 1902. (Based on C. foenea var.
ferruginea A. Gray.) Carex albolutescens vox. ferruginea Kiikcnth. in Engler, Pflanzenreich 4 20 : 209. 1909. (Based on
C. foenea var. ferruginea A. Gray.) Carex festucacea var. ferruginea Farwell, Papers Mich. Acad. 2:17. 1923. (Based on C. foenea var.
ferruginea A. Gray.)
Very densely cespitose, the rootstocks very short-prolonged, blackish, fibrillose, the culms 3-9 dm. high, exceeding or slightly shorter than the leaves, very slender to base, sharply triangular, strongly roughened on the angles above, light-brown at base and clothed with the dried-up leaves of the previous year, the upper short-bladed, the lower bladeless; leaves of the year with well-developed blades 3-5 to a fertile culm, on the lower half, but widely separated, the blades flat, usually 1-2 dm. long, 2-3 mm. wide, long-attenuate, light-green, not stiff, roughened at the apex, the sheaths very long, green-striate ventrally to mouth, prolonged more or less strongly beyond base of blade and continuous with ligule; sterile shoots few; spikes 2-5, gynaecandrous, aggregated or approximate in a stiff head 1.5-3 cm. long, S— 14 mm. thick, the spikes ovoid, the lateral 7-12 mm. long, 5-7 mm. wide, short-pointed or rounded at apex, rounded and little staminate at base, the terminal spike similar but longer, clavate and strongly staminate at base, the numerous perigynia erect, strictly appressed; upper bracts scale-like, the lowest usually cuspidate-prolonged; scales ovate, acute, cuspidate or even obtusish, yellowish-brown with hyaline margins and green midrib, shorter and narrower than perigynia; perigynia very thin and flat except where distended over achene, ovate, 4-5 mm. long, 2.25-2.75 mm. wide, yellowish-brown with green margins and beak, faintly nerved dorsally, nerveless or nearly so ventrally, strongly winged to base and serrulate to below middle, the body widest near middle, round-truncate at base, tapering into a beak one third to one fourth the length of the body, flat, serrulate, obliquely cut dorsally, reddishtipped, sharply bidentate; achenes lenticular, substipitate, strongly apiculate, yellowishbrown, ovoid, 1.5 mm. long, 1 mm. wide; style slender, jointed with achene, at length withering, slightly thickened at base; stigmas two, slender, light-reddish-brown.
Tvpe locality (of C. foenea var. % Boott, on which C. suberecta is based): Ohio, Sullivant, Lesquereux.
Distribution: Moist meadows, Ontario and Ohio to western Virginia, Minnesota, and Iowa. (Specimens examined from western Virginia, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota.)

Carex suberecta, known as prairie straw sedge, is a species of sedge native to North America.