Kidney Shape Sedge

Plants cespitose; rhizomes appearing elongate in old clumps, 1.5–5 mm wide, mostly 1 shoot per node. Culms 25–75 cm; vegetative culms few, inconspicuous, usually fewer than 12 leaves, not strikingly 3-ranked. Leaves: sheaths with adaxial hyaline band, summits U-shaped; distal ligules 1.7–3.6 mm; blades 4–5 per fertile culm, 10–25 cm × 1.8–3.2 mm. Inflorescences open, yellow-green, 2–5 cm × 6–14 mm; proximal internode 5–11 mm; 2d internode 5–13 mm; proximal bracts scalelike or with bristle tip shorter than or equaling inflorescences. Spikes 3–6, distant, distinct, ellipsoid to ovoid, 7–12 × 5–10 mm, base rounded to acute, apex rounded. Pistillate scales white-hyaline with green midstripe, ovate, 2–3.5 mm, reaching base of perignyium beaks, narrower than perigynia, apex obtuse to rounded. Perigynia 15–80 in larger spikes, ascending, straw colored, green distally, inconspicuously veined on each face, reniform to orbiculate, flat, 4–5.3 × 3.5–4.5(–4.9) mm, 0.4–0.6 mm thick, margin flat, including wing 1–1.5 mm wide, finely granular-papillose (30X); beak pale or green at tip, flat, ciliate-serrulate, abaxial suture with conspicuous white-hyaline margin, distance from beak tip to achene 2–2.7 mm. Achenes elliptic, 1.8–2.2 × 1.2–1.5 mm, 0.4–0.6 mm thick. 2n = 80.

Ala., Ark., Fla., Ga., Ill., Ky., La., Miss., Mo., N.C., Okla., S.C., Tenn., Tex., Va.

Fruiting late spring.

Wet woods, bottomlands; 0–300m.

Carex straminea Willdenow ex Schkuhr var. reniformis L. H. Bailey, Mem. Torrey Bot. Club 1: 73. 1889

Carex reniformis (L. H. Bailey) Small, Fl. SE. U. S 220. 1903.
Carex slraminea var. reniformis L. H. Bailey, Mem. Torrey Club 1: 73. 1889. (Type from
Mississippi.) Carex slraminea var. brevior I. reniformis " L. H. Bailey" Kiikenth. in Engler, Pflanzenreich 4 20 : 207.
1909. (Based on C. slraminea var. reniformis L. H. Bailey.)
Densely cespitose, the rootstock very short, black, fibrillose, the culms 3-9 dm. high, exceeding the leaves, sharply triangular, slender to base, strongly roughened on the angles above, light-brown at base, and clothed with the dried-up leaves of the previous year, the lower bladeless, the upper with short blades; leaves with well-developed blades about 5 to a culm, on the lower half, but not bunched, the blades flat, usually 1-2 dm. long, 2-2.5 mm. wide, light-green, thickish, roughened towards the attenuate apex, the sheaths with a narrow hyaline strip ventrally, the ligule surrounding the culm, thin, yellowish-brown-tinged, and prolonged beyond base of blade; head 3-4.5 cm. long, about 1 cm. thick, the spikes 3-6, more or less strongly separate, gynaecandrous, subglobose, blunt and rounded at apex, rounded-truncate or the terminal abruptly short-clavate at base, 6-10 mm. long, 5-8 mm. wide, greenish, the basal staminate flowers few and inconspicuous (except in the terminal spike), the perigynia numerous, appressed, with ascending but conspicuous beaks; lower one or two bracts usually 2.5 cm. long or less, very setaceous, the upper scale-like; scales ovate, light-ycllowish-bmuu with hyaline margins and green 3-nerved center, obtuse, much narrower than and about the length of the bodies of the perigynia, much exceeded by the beaks; perigynia very flat, except where dilated over the achene, subcoriaceous, straw-colored, with green beak, reiiiforni. v at middle, strongly (ringed to base, serrulate to middle, the body 3-3.5 mm. long, 3.5-4.3 nun wide, rounded to a truncate base, nrrvrh s , or nearly so ventrally, slenderly several nerved dorsally, very abruptly contracted into i beak 1-1.5 mm. long, about one third length of
body, flat, serrulate, obliquely cut dorsally, reddish-tipped, bidentate; acl lenticular,
oblong oval, 2 mm. long, 1.5 nun. wide, very short-substipitate, apiculate; style lender,
slightly enlarged at base, jointed with achene, at length deddui two, lender,
reddish-brown.
Typk locality (of I", slraminea var. ttMform.il I. 11 Bailey, "n which < rtniformii i bs ed) Bogue, Phalia, Slohr. Starkville, Tracy B Loulsian Distribution: Moist soil, Georgia to Texas, and northward to South Carolina, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. (Specimens examined from South Carolina. Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas.)