Clustered Field Sedge

Carex praegracilis is extensively and recently spreading east of its native range, especially along expressways to which road salt is applied in winter (A. A. Reznicek and P. M. Catling 1987).

Rhizomes coarse, 1.8–3 mm thick, typically with long, unbranched segments from which shoots arise singly every few nodes. Culms sharply trigonous, (10–)25–80(–100) cm, scabrous-angled distally. Leaves: basal sheaths dark brown to nearly black; sheaths with hyaline inner band, apex not prolonged, glabrous; ligules 0.6–2.6 mm; blades 1–3(–3.5) mm wide. Inflorescences elongate, 0.9–4 cm; spikes 5–18(–25), usually unisexual; staminate spikes lanceoloid; pistillate spikes ovoid. Pistillate scales straw colored to pale reddish brown, with hyaline margins, ovate, apex acute to acuminate-awned, dull to ± satiny. Anthers (1.8–)2.2–3.9 mm, apiculus bristly hairy (30X). Perigynia brown to nearly black at maturity, essentially veinless, usually stipitate, ovate, plano-convex, (2.2–)2.6–3.7 × 1.2–1.9 mm, dull; beak 0.7–1.2 mm, 1/4–1/2 length of body, apex ± hyaline, obscurely bidentate.

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

Fruiting May–Aug.

Wet to seasonally dry meadows, prairies, stream banks, lakeshores, springheads and seeps, openings in woodlands, ditches, roadsides, tolerant of alkaline soils; 0–3400m.

Carex praegracilis W. Boott, Bot. Gaz. 9: 87. 1884
Carfx marciiia Boott, in Hook. Fl. Bor. Am. 2: 212. pi. 213. 1839. (Type from Columbia River.l
Not C. ma»-cj(ia J. F. Gmel. 1791. Carex Douglasii var. brunnea Olney, in S. Wats. Bot. King's Expl. 363. 1871. (Type from California.) Not C. ()r«n«<>o Thunb. 1784. Carex Gayana var. hyalina L. H. Bailey, Proc. Am. Acad. 22: 135. 1886. (Type from Sonora,
Mexico.) Not C. hyalina Boott. 1845. Carex marcida var. debilis L. H. Bailey, Proc. Am. Acad. 22: 136. 1886. (Type from Harney
Valley, Oregon.) Carex usla L. H. Bailey, Mem. Torrey Club 1: 20. 1889. (Based on C Douglasii var. brunnea
Olney.) Carex Sartwellii var. occidentalis L. H. Bailey; Macoun, Cat. Can. PI. 5: 374. 1890. (Type from
Guichon Creek, British Columbia.) Carex marcida var. alterna L. H. Bailey; Macoun, Cat. Can. PI. 5:374. 1890. (Type from Shuswap
Lake, British Columbia.) "Carex canescens L." Speg. Revista Fac. Agron. La Plata 3: 579. 1897. "Carex Hookeriana Dewey" Parish, Bull. So. Calif. Acad. 5: 26. 1906. "Carex siccata Dewey" Parish, Bull. So. Calif. Acad. 5: 50. 1906. Carex alterna C. B. Clarke. Kew Bull. Add. Ser. 8: 69. 1908. (Based on C. marcida var. alterna L.
H. Bailey.) Carex latebrosa Mackenzie, Bull. Torrey Club 34: 603. 1908. (Based on C. Gayana var. hyalina
L. H. Bailey.) Carex marcida f. debilis " L. H. Bailey" Kukenth. in Engler, Pflanzenreich 4™ : 124. 1909. (Based
on C. marcida var. debilis L. H. Bailey.) Carex marcida i. alterna "L. H. Bailey" Ktikenth. in Engler, Pflanzenreich 4^°: 124. 1909. (Based
on C marcida var. alterna L. H. Bailey.) Carex Sartwellii f. occidentalis " L. H. Bailey" Kukenth. in Engler, Pflanzenreich 4": 137. 1909.
(Based on C Sartwellii var. occidentalis L. H. Bailey.) Carex Douglasii f. brunnea "Olney" Kukenth. in Engler, Pflanzenreich 4'"': 122. 1909. (Based on
C. Douglasii var. brunnea Olney.) Carex siccata var. obscurior Kukenth. in Engler. Pflanzenreich 4": 133. 1909. (Type from Lincoln
County, Washington.) Carex camporum Mackenzie, Bull. Torrey Club 37: 244. 1910. (Based on C. marcida Boott.)
Rootstocks long-creeping, stout, thick, black, fibrillose, the culms 2-7.5 dm. high, arising singly or in small clumps, sharply triangular and slender but stiff, usually roughened on the angles above and more or less strongly exceeding the leaves, dark-brown or black and clothed at base with the dried-up leaves of the previous year; leaves all near the base of the culm, those of the year's growth with well-developed blades 2-5 to a culm, the blades erectascending, flattened or somewhat channeled, 1-2.5 dm. long, 1.5-3 mm. wide, light-green, thickish, roughened on the margins and towards the apex, the sheaths truncate and sometimes slightly thickened at mouth, the ligule very short; spikes 5-15, densely aggregated into a linear-oblong, oblong, or obong-ovoid head 1-5 cm. long, 6-10 mm. thick, the individual spikes (especially the lowest) rather readily distinguishable, but little separated (or the lower several more or less markedly separate), obtusish, 4—8 mm. long, 4-6 mm. wide, containing about 10 perigynia, the terminal staminate flowers inconspicuous; bracts absent or the lower one or two present, 5-30 mm. long, normally much shorter than the heads, very narrow but somewhat enlarged at base, brownish-straw-colored (at least in age) the upper scale-like; scales ovate, light-chestnut-brown with conspicuous hyaline margins and lighter midrib, the lower cuspidate, the upper acuminate, wider and longer than the perigynia and usually completely concealing them, at maturity dull-brownish-straw-colored or frequently straw-colored; perigynia plano-convex, ovate or ovate-lanceolate, 3-4 mm. long, 1.5 mm. wide, erect-ascending, straw-colored or at maturity brownish-black, coriaceous, dull, rounded and lightly severalnerved dorsally, flat and nerveless ventrally, sharp-margined, the edges slightly elevated and serrulate above middle, short-stipitate, spongy and rounded at base, tapering into a serrulate beak half the length of the body or more, obliquely cut dorsally, at length bidentulate, the orifice with overlapping hyaline edges; achenes lenticular, obovoid, about 1.25 mm. long, tapering at base, bluntly apiculate; style slender, short, jointed with achene, not enlarged at base; stigmas two, reddish-brown, slender.
Type locality: San Diego, California (Miss Scott).
Distribution: Moist open places, plains, prairies, foothills, and mountains, very widely distributed and variable, Manitoba, Iowa, and Kansas to Yukon, British Columbia, California, and central Mexico; also in South America. Adventized eastward, western Missouri, eastern Kansas. (Specimens examined from Manitoba, Minnesota. Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado, Montana, Saskatchewan. Wyoming, Alberta, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Yukon, British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Lower California, Chihuahua, Durango, Hidalgo, Michoacdn, Federal District.)

Carex praegracilis is a species of North American sedge known as clustered field sedge, field sedge, and expressway sedge. Carex praegracilis is cultivated in the specialty horticulture trade as lawn substitute and meadow-like plantings.