Fibrousroot Sedge

Plants densely cespitose; rhizomes ascending, reddish brown to purplish brown, 0–3 mm, stout or absent. Culms 20–60 cm, scabrous distally; bases (remnants of old leaves) slightly or not fibrous. Leaf blades green, 1.8–5 mm wide, widest leaves 3+ mm wide, herbaceous, papillose to scabrous abaxially, papillose to scabrous adaxially. Inflorescences usually with both staminate and pistillate spikes, rarely only pistillate; peduncle of staminate spike 0.7–9.7 mm; proximal nonbasal bracts leaflike, usually shorter than inflorescences. Spikes: proximal pistillate spikes 2–3 (basal spike 0); cauline spikes usually clearly separated, with 3–10 perigynia; staminate spikes 3.1–15.5 × 1–2.5 mm. Scales: pistillate scales pale brown to dark reddish brown, often with broad white margins, ovate to lanceolate, 2.5–4.8 × 1.2–2 mm, shorter than to exceeding perigynia, apex obtuse to acuminate or short-awned; staminate scales elliptic to obovate, 3.1–5.2 × 0.7–2.2 mm, apex obtuse to acuminate or short-aristate. Anthers 1.8–3 mm. Perigynia pale green, veinless, globose to obovoid, 2.7–3.8 × 1.2–2.6 mm, as long as wide; beak usually straight, occasionally slightly bent, pale green, 0.5–2.3 mm, weakly ciliate-serrulate, apical teeth 0.1–0.5 mm. Stigmas 3. Achenes pale brown, globose to obovoid, round to obtusely trigonous in cross section, 1.4–2.3 × 1–1.4 mm.

Carex communis L. H. Bailey, Mem. Torrey Club 1 : 41. 1889
"Carex varia Muhl." Dewey, Am. Jour. Sci. H: 162. 1826.
Carex varia var. pedicellata Dewey, Am. Jour. Sci. 11: 163. 1826. (Type from western Massachusetts.)
Carex pennsylvanica var. Mithlenhergii A. Gray (N. Am. Gram. 163. 1835); Torr. Ann. Lye. N. Y. 3:410. 1836. (As to plant described only.)
"Carex pennsylvanica Lara." Torr. Ann. Lye. N. Y. 3: 410. 1836.
Carex varia var. minor Boott. 111. Carex 97. pi. 289. 1860. (Based on C. varia Muhl.)
Carex communis var. U'heeleri L. H. Bailey, Mem. Torrey Club 1: 41. 1889. (Type from Ionia County, Michigan.)
Carex pennsylvanica var. nebulosa Barratt; L. H. Bailey, Mem. Torrey Club 1 : 77, as synonym. 1889. (Type from Connecticut.)
Carex pedicellata Britton; L. H. Bailey. Mem. Torrey Club 5: 87. 1894. (Based on C. varia var. pedicellata Dewey.)
Carex pedicellata var. Wheeleri Britton; L. H. Bailey, Mem. Torrey Club 5: 88. 1894. (Based on C communis var. Wheeleri L. H. Bailey.)
"Carex pilulifera L." Fernald, Proc. Am. Acad. 37: 503. 1902.
"Carex pilulifera var. longibracteala Lange" Fernald, Proc. Am. Acad. 37: 504. 1902.
Carex communis var. gynandra Farwell, Am. Midi. Nat. 12:52. 1930. (Type from Livonia, Michigan.)
Loosely cespitose, without long horizontal stolons, but with short, ascending, branching, scaly, reddish-purple rootstocks; culms 1.5-5 dm. high, slender and rather weak, rarely very short, mostly lateral and aphyllopodic, but the terminal central and phyllopodic, sharply triangular and very rough on the angles above, from much shorter than to e.xceeded by the leaves, strongly purplish-red and not conspicuously fibrillose at base, the dried-up leaves of the previous year conspicuous; sterile shoots numerous, strongly aphyllopodic; leaves with well developed blades several to each fertile culm, near the base, the blades light-green, flat, thin, and rather flaccid, 2-5 cm. long, 2-4 mm. wide, rough especially towards the short-acuminate apex and on the margins, the sheaths concave at mouth, the lower breaking and becoming filamentose, the ligule longer than wide, conspicuous, blades of sterile shoots and old leaf-blades 2.5-4 mm. wide, from very short to 3 dm. long, staminate spike solitary, linear, from sessile to noticeably peduncled, 4-18 mm. long, 0.75-2 mm. wide, the scales obovate-oblong, obtuse to acute, the margins white-hyaline, the 3-nerved center green or straw-colored and the intermediate portion reddish-brown; pistillate spikes 2 or 3, the upper one or two approximate and sessile or nearly so, the lowermost somewhat separate and short-peduncled, none basal, the spikes oblong-orbicular, 4-8 mm. long, 3-5 mm. wide, rather closely flowered and usually containing 3-10 ascending perigynia in several rows; lowest bract squamiform or leaflet-like, sheathless or nearly so, usually well -developed and from shorter than to exceeding the inflorescence, narrowly hyaline-margined and purplish-tinged at base; upper bracts much reduced or scale-like; scales ovate to ovate-lanceolate, acuminate to obtuse, exceeded by or somewhat exceeding perigynia, reddish-purple with 3-nerved green center and narrowly hyaline margins; perigynia obovoid, 3-3.5 mm. long, the body puberulent, 2-keeled, but otherwise nerveless, membranaceous, light-green, closely enveloping the achene, obtusely triangular in crosssection, 2 mm. long, 1.5 mm. wide, the body very short-oval or suborbicular, stipitate, abruptly contracted into a spongybase 0.75 mm. long and into a flattish bidentate beak 0.5 mm. long; achenes broadly obovoid, triangular with convex sides, light-brown with lighter angles, minutely pitted, 1.5-2 mm. long, 1.25 mm. wide, short-tapering at base, truncate and short-bentapiculate at apex; style slender, jointed with achene, deciduous; stigmas three, reddish-brown, slender.
T^TE locality; Sarlwell lOS, from Penn Yan, New York, is taken as the type.
Distribution: Dry woodlands, usually on rocky ledges. Nova Scotia to Minnesota, and southward to Georgia, Kentucky, and Arkansas. (Specimens examined from Quebec, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island. New Brunswick, Maine, New Hampshire. Vermont, Massachusetts. Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, District of Columbia. Virginia. North Carolina. South Carolina, Georgia, Ontario, Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, Indiana, Kentuckv, Iowa, Arkansas.)

Carex communis, the fibrous-root sedge, is a species of flowering plant in the genus Carex, native to central and eastern Canada and the central and eastern United States. Its seeds are dispersed by ants.