Warty Sedge

Numerous authors have considered Carex verrucosa and C. glaucescens conspecific. L. H. Bailey (1889) stated that the two forms are not sufficiently distinct to merit even a varietal separation. The two taxa are separable on proximal sheaths, spike orientation, presence of staminate spikelets at the apex of pistillate spikes, perigynium shape, and achene shape. They are also phenologically distinct, with flowering times separated by 1–2 months.

Culms to 125 cm. Leaves: sheaths glaucous, fronts indistinctly veined, veins not persisting, apex thin, concave; blades 120 cm × 10 mm, glabrous or sparsely scabrous on margins and abaxial surface. Inflorescences with 5–7 spikes, 30 cm; peduncle of terminal spike to 3.5–6 cm; proximal bracts equaling or exceeding inflorescence, 3–5 mm wide; lateral spikes erect, 2–6 cm × 7 mm; terminal staminate spikelets usually absent. Pistillate scales shorter and narrower than perigynia, apex retuse, awn to 2 mm. Perigynia ascending, red-brown or whitish, angles veined, faces inconspicuously 3–8-veined, stipitate, widely elliptic or obovate, 3.2–4 × 2.5–3 mm, base rounded, apex obtuse to somewhat tapered, densely papillose with rounded white papillae, sometimes strongly glaucous; stipe to 0.2 mm; beak to 0.2 mm, entire. Achenes rhomboid, 2.5–2.7 × 2.5–2.7 mm, base not conspicuously broadened.

Ala., Fla., Ga., La., N.C., S.C., Tex.

Fruiting Jun–Jul.

Shallow water in cypress ponds, shallow depressions in marshes; 0–200m.

Carex glaucescens Elliott var. androgyna M. A. Curtis; C. macrokolea Steudel

Carex verrucosa Muhl. Descr. Gram. 261. 1817
Carex glaucescens var. androgyna M. A. Curt. Am. Jour. Sci. 44 : 84. 1843. (Type from Wilmington,
North Carolina.) Carex verrucosa var. androgyna "M. A. Curt." Dewey, Am. Jour. Sci. 48: 140. pi. DD, f. 99. 1845.
(Based on C. glaucescens var. androgyna M. A. Curt.) Carex macrokolea Steud. Syn. Cyp. 223. 1855. (Type from New Orleans, Louisiana.) Carex brasiliensis var. gracilis Bock. Linnaea 41: 292. 1877. (Excluding citations mostly; type
from Louisiana.) Carex sp. Harper, Bull. Torrey Club 32: 460. 1905. (Brunswick, Georgia.) Carex glaucescens f. macrokolea Kiikenth. in Engler, Pflanzenreich 4 2 °: 733. 1909. (Based on C.
macrokolea Steud.)
Loosely cespitose, from creeping, rather slender, tough, blackish, scaly rootstocks, the culms 6-12 dm. high, stout below, rather slender above, sharply triangular with concave sides and smooth angles, much exceeding leaves, phyllopodic, reddish-brown at base, the basal sheaths little if at all filamentose; leaves with well-developed blades 6-12 to a fertile culm, mostly clustered near the base, not septate-nodulose, the blades deeply channeled, keeled and somewhat triangular at base, flat above with revolute margins, 2-7 dm. long, 4-10 mm. wide, glaucous, punctate, firm, much roughened towards the long-attenuate apex, the sheaths very thin and yellowish-tinged and strongly dark-red-dotted ventrally, truncate at mouth, the ligule short; staminate spike normally one (or with 1 or 2 additional sessile ones at base), erect, linear, 3-6 cm. long, 4—6 mm. wide, the peduncle rough, the scales oblanceolate or obovate, deeply retuse, abruptly strongly rough-awned, purplish-brown with green 3-nerved center and very narrow hyaline margins; pistillate spikes 3 or 4, or occasionally up to 6, strongly separate, erect, the lower on short peduncles, the upper sessile or nearly so, 2.5-8 cm. long, 7-10 mm. wide, densely flowered, the perigynia numerous, ascending, in several to many rows; lowest bract leaflet-like, slightly sheathing, exceeding inflorescence, the others reduced; scales with oblong-obovate bodies, narrower and somewhat shorter than the perigynia, purplishbrown with green 3-nerved center, and very narrow hyaline margins, deeply retuse, abruptly rough-cuspidate, the awns from one third to twice the length of the body of the scale; perigynia broadly obovoid, triangular, not inflated, 3-4.5 mm. long, -2.5 mm. wide, very glaucous, strongly several-nerved (at least above), papillate, subcoriaceous, tapering at base, sessile or nearly so, contracted at apex into a minute (0.25 mm. long) beak with entire orifice; achenes very broadly rhomboid-obovoid, triangular with deeply concave sides and prominent blunt angles, 2.5 mm. long and about as wide, closely filling perigynium, granular, sessile, abruptly apiculate, jointed with the straight, slender style; stigmas 3, slender, reddish-brown.
Type locality: "Habitat in Georgia et Carolina."
Distribution: Pineland swamps, South Carolina to Florida and Louisiana. Flowers in spring and sometimes again later in the season. (Specimens examined from South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana.)