Dark Green Sedge

Carex venusta has been divided into two varieties: one with glabrous perigynia and slightly smaller perigynia and the typical variety with pubescent perigynia. Both varieties are named from types from the Gulf coastal plain. Varieties are not recognized here because variability in the characters used to separate them is greater within populations than between populations. However, there do seem to be two taxonomic entities within this species: one with a distribution from Texas to North Carolina and the other with a distribution from North Carolina to Long Island, New York. The two groups differ slightly in perigynium size and shape and have different, but overlapping, series of chromosome numbers and strikingly different allozyme patterns (M. J. Waterway 1988). The northern group always has glabrous perigynia while the southern group has both glabrous and pubescent perigynia, often in the same population. Whether to recognize these variants as varieties of C. venusta or as distinct species is the subject of ongoing study. Hybrids between both groups and C. debilis have been confirmed.

Plants densely cespitose. Culms dark maroon at base; flowering stems 30–90 cm, longer than leaves at maturity, 0.8–1 mm thick, glabrous but scabrous within inflorescence. Leaves: basal sheaths maroon, bladeless, glabrous on back; others grading from maroon to green on back, pale brown-hyaline and red dotted on front, pubescent near apex; blades flat, 2.8–7.2 mm wide, glabrous on both surfaces, margins smooth or finely scabrous. Inflorescences: peduncles of lateral spikes slender, 5–100 mm, finely scabrous; peduncle of terminal spike less than 15 mm, finely scabrous; proximal bracts equaling inflorescences or shorter; sheaths 10–70 mm; blades 1.5–3.5 mm wide. Lateral spikes 3–5, 1 per node, well separated, erect to nodding or drooping at maturity, pistillate with 10–40 perigynia attached 1–3 mm apart, narrowly oblong-cylindric, 10–50 × 4–5 mm. Terminal spike staminate or sometimes gynecandrous with a few pistillate flowers distally, 12–55 × 1–2 mm. Pistillate scales suffused with reddish brown to chestnut with hyaline margins and broad green midrib, ovate-oblong, shorter than mature perigynia, apex obtuse, acute, or sometimes mucronate, glabrous except scabrous midrib. Perigynia olive-green, copiously red dotted, conspicuously 10–12-veined, veins about equal in size, loosely enveloping achene, ovoid-ellipsoid to lance-ovoid, 4.6–9 × 1.2–2.2 mm, membranous to coriaceous, base with short stipe, apex tapering to very short beak, glabrous or short-pubescent; beak minutely bidentate, 0.3–0.8 mm, ciliate between apical teeth. Achenes distinctly stipitate, 2–2.5 × 1–1.5 mm, stipe 1–1.5 mm. 2n = 42, 44, 46, 48, 50.

Fruiting late spring–early summer. Swamp forests, bogs, wet places in pine forests, bays, hammocks, roadside ditches; Ala., Del., D.C., Fla., Ga., La., Md., Miss., N.J., N.Y., N.C., S.C., Tenn., Va.

Carex oblita Steudel; C. venusta var. minor Boeckeler

Carex venusta Dewey, Am. Jour. Sci. 26: 107 pi. T,f. 62. 1834.
Densely cespitose, not stoloniferous, the clumps medium-sized, the culms 3-9 dm. high, slender, exceeding the leaves, mostly lateral and aphyllopodic, sharply angled, smooth below, roughened in the inflorescence, purplish-reddened at base, the basal sheaths loose; sterile shoots conspicuous; leaves (not bracts) with well-developed blades usually 3 or 4 to a fertile culm, widely separated, the blades ascending, flat, thin, light-green, usually 1-2.5 dm. long, 3-4.5 mm. wide, or 5-8 mm. on the sterile shoots, scabrous on the margins and on the upper surface and toward apex; sheaths very long, scabrous, puberulent at mouth, light-yellowishbrown-tinged ventrally, deeply concave at mouth, the ligule long, short-pubescent; terminal spike staminate, occasionally with some perigynia at the apex, slender-peduncled, elongate, linear, 2.5-5 cm. long, 1.5-2 mm. wide, the peduncle very rough, the scales appressed, oblongoblanceolate, obtuse, hyaline and usually more or less strongly light-reddish-brown-tinged and purplish-red-dotted, with roughish green midvein; pistillate spikes usually 3 or 4, the upper approximate, erect, short-exsert-peduncled, the lower distant and drooping, on long slender rough peduncles, slender, linear, 3-5 cm. long, 3-5 mm. wide, rather loosely flowered, containing 10-25 appressed-ascending perigynia in few rows; bracts leaf-like, reduced upward, the sheaths 1-3 cm. long, hispidulous, the blades generally shorter than the culms; scales ovate or oblong-ovate, obtuse to mucronate, somewhat ciliate, hyaline and reddish-brown-tinged, with 3-nerved green center, narrower than and from one third to one half the length of the perigynia, soon deciduous; perigynia lanceolate, 6-7.5 mm. long, 2 mm. wide, somewhat flattened-triangular, scarcely inflated, scabrous, short-pubescent, submembranaceous but firm, pale-green, puncticulate, red-dotted, strongly several-nerved, tapering at base, stipitate, tapering or somewhat contracted at apex into a short, slender, conic beak 0.5 mm. long, with hyaline, obliquely cut, ciliate orifice; achenes obovoid, 2.5 mm. long, 1.5 mm. wide, triangular with concave sides and blunt angles, in lower half of perigynia, yellowish, granular, slenderstipitate, slender-apiculate and jointed with the straight slender style; stigmas 3, slender, blackish.
Type locality: "S. Car. to Florida."
Distribution: Pine-barren swamps, North Carolina to Florida. (Specimens examined from North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida.)

Carex oblita Steud. Syn. Cyp. 231. 1855
Carex venusta var. y Boott, 111. Carex 51. 1858. (Type from New Orleans, Louisiana.) Carex glabra Boott, 111. Carex 93. pi. 275. 1860. (Type given as from Oneida County, New York.) Carex venusta var. minor Bock. Linnaea 41 : 255. 1877. (Based on C. oblita Steud.) Carex venusta var. glabra L. H. Bailey, Proc. Am. Acad. 22: 105. 1886. (Based on C. glabra Boott.) Carex venusta var. oblita Kiikenth. in Engler, Pflanzenreich 4 20 : 597. 1909. (Based on C. oblita Steud.)
Very densely cespitose, not at all stoloniferous, the clumps medium-sized, the culms 2.56.5 dm. high, weakly ascending to erect, slender, exceeding the leaves, mostly lateral and aphyllopodic, some central, obtusely triangular, somewhat roughened on the angles above, strongly purplish-tinged at base, the basal sheaths loose, breaking and becoming filamentose ; sterile shoots conspicuous, elongate; culm-leaves usually 2 or 3, on lower third, the blades ascending, rarely exceeding 15 cm. in length, 2-2.5 mm. wide, roughened toward the apex and on the margins, flat, thin, deep-green, smooth, the blades of the sterile culms up to 6 mm. wide, often 30 cm. long; sheaths very long, tight, yellowish-brown-tinged and red-dotted ventrally, hispidulous especially at mouth, concave at mouth, the ligule long; staminate spike solitary, slender, very rough-peduncled, narrowly linear, 1.5-4 cm. long, 1-2 mm. wide, often with pistillate flowers at the middle or apex, the scales appressed, oblong-obovate, obtuse or acute, ciliate, reddish-brown-tinged with white-hyaline margins and green midrib, soon deciduous; pistillate spikes 2 or 3, more or less strongly separate, the lower drooping, the upper drooping to weakly erect, on very slender rough peduncles of about their own length, narrowly linear, 1-5 cm. long, 3-5 mm. wide, rather densely 10-30-flowered in few rows, the perigynia ascending and overlapping; bracts long-sheathing, usually exceeded by the culms, the lowest leaf-like, the upper much reduced, the sheaths rough-hispidulous; scales ovate-lanceolate, acute or obtuse, short-ciliate, reddish-brown with 3-nerved green center and white-hyaline margins, the central nerves rough-pubescent, much narrower than and one third to one half the length of the perigynia, soon deciduous; perigynia narrowly oblong-obovoid, 5-7 mm. long, 2-2.25 mm. wide, suborbicular-triangular in cross-section, little inflated, glabrous, subcoriaceous, firm, olive-green, puncticulate, red-dotted, prominently about 10-ribbed, round-tapering at base and short-stipitate, tapering at apex into a short (0.5 mm. long), thickish, flattened, shallowly bidentate beak, whitish at the orifice; achenes obovoid, 2.5 mm. long, 1.5 mm. wide, triangular with concave sides and blunt angles, in lower half of perigynium, granular, shortstipitate or substipitate, slender, apiculate and jointed with the straight slender style; stigmas 3, slender, short, blackish.
Type locality: New Orleans, Louisiana (Drummond 434).
Distribution: Moist sandy woods and thickets, acid soils, near the coast, Louisiana to Georgia, and northward to Long Island, New York. Recorded from central New York, but apparently erroneously. (Specimens examined from Long Island, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, District of Columbia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana.)