Glacial Sedge

Plants densely cespitose, often forming tussocks, short-rhizomatous. Culms to 20(–30) cm. Leaf blades 2–(–10) cm × 0.5–1.5 mm, dead leaf remains often circinnate. Spikes: staminate 2–8 × 0.7–2 mm; pistillate 2–9 × 1–3 mm. Pistillate scales reddish black with hyaline margins, subcircular, 1.4–2.5 × 1.2–2 mm, apex obtuse to subacute, shorter than to as long as perigynium body. Staminate scales reddish black or dark brown, midvein paler, obovate, 2–3 × 0.8–1.4 mm, apex obtuse to acute. Perigynia reddish black to dark brown distally, 1.5–2.5 × 0.9–1.2 mm; beak 0.3–0.5 mm. Achenes obovoid, 1.75 × 0.8 mm. 2n = 34.

Greenland; Alta., B.C., Man., Nfld. and Labr., N.W.T., Nunavut, Ont., Que., Sask., Yukon; Alaska; n Eurasia.

Fruiting summer.

Dry rocks, gravel, sand, talus slopes, eskers, on limestone; 0–1000m.

Carex pedata Wahlenburg, Fl. Lapp., 239, plate 14. 1812, not Linnaeus 1763; C. terrae-novae Fernald

Carex glacialis Mackenzie, Bull. Torrey Club 37: 244. 1910.
Carex pedala Wahl. Fl. Lapp. 239. pi. 14. 1812. (Type from Lapland.) Not C. pcdala L. 1763.
Very densely cespitose, in large clumps, the rootstocks not at all prolonged, the culms central, 4-15 cm. high, strongly exceeding the leaves, little roughened on the angles, slender but wiry and stiff, obtusely triangular, reddish-purple at base and clothed with the dried-up leaves of the previous year, the lower bladeless; leaves 3-S to a fertile culm, clustered towards the base, the blades flat at base, triangular and channeled above, usually 2-4 cm. long, 1-1.5 mm. wide, stiff, yellowish-green, recurved and spreading, roughened, noticeably long-attenuate and sometimes circinate at apex, the sheaths tight, hyaline ventrally, thin and concave at mouth, the ligule short; terminal spike staminate, sessile, slender, 2-6 mm. long, 0.75 mm. wide, few-flowered, the scales obovate, acute or obtuse, purplish-black with light-colored center and hyaline margins; pistillate spikes 1-3, very small, 2-5 mm. long, 1 mm. wide, containing 1-5 erect-ascending perigynia, sessile or the lowest on a peduncle 2-7 mm. long, the whole inflorescence 0.7-2 cm. long; lowest bract slightly sheathing, loose, short-tubular, obtuse or prolonged into a cusp 15 mm. long or less, brownish-tinged and hyaline-margined, the upper smaller; scales broadly ovate, acutish or obtusish, purplish-black, with hyaline margins, the midvein often nearly obsolete, exceeded by the perigynia but half enveloping them below; perigynia obovoid or broadly obovoid, 2.5 mm. long, 1.25 mm. wide, obtusely triangular in cross-section, the upper part not empty, glabrous, 2-keeIed, otherwise nerveless, membranaceous, yellowish-green or straw-colored below, purplish-black above, tapering at base, rather abruptly contracted at apex into a beak 0.5 mm. long, hyaline-tipped, cylindric, with entire slightly obliquely cut orifice, achenes 1.75 mm. long, O.S mm. wide, oval-obovoid, triangular, with nearly flat sides and blunt angles, yellowish-brown, tapering at base, sessile, prominently apiculate, closely filling the perigynia; style very short, terete, slightly conic, jointed with achene, deciduous; stigmas three, slender, blackish, long.
Typr locality: "Hab. in collibus el latcribus aspcris siccis alpium Lulensium ad alatus mcridionale lacus Virih-jaur." (Lapland.)
iJiSTKiBtTio.N: Dry, sunny places in limestone regions in arctic-alpine localities, Greenland and western Newfoundland to Yukon; also in northern Eurasia. (Specimens examined from Greenland, western Newfoundland, Ellesmereland, Mackenzie, Yukon.)