Pine Barren Sedge

Carex turgescens Torr. Ann. Lye. N. Y. 3: 419. 1836
Cespitose from slender, elongate rootstocks, the stolons long, slender, horizontal, the culms 6-9 dm. high, slender, erect, obtusely triangular, much exceeding the leaves, smooth or nearly so, phyllopodic, brownish and more or less fibrillose at base; leaves with well-developed blades 3-6 to a fertile culm, on the lower third but not bunched, sparingly septate-nodulose, the blades firm, light-green, flat above with more or less revolute margins, channeled towards base, usually 1-3 dm. long, 1.5-5 mm. wide, long-attenuate, much roughened towards the apex, the sheaths tight, chestnut-brown-tinged at mouth, and prolonged upward beyond base of blade, the ligule much longer than wide; staminate spike solitary, slender-peduncled, narrowly linear, 3.5-5 cm. long, 2.5-4 mm. wide, the peduncle rough, the scales obovate, obtuse, light-reddish-brown with green 1-3-nerved center and white-hyaline margins; pistillate spikes 2 or 3, widely separate or sometimes approximate, erect, the upper on peduncles exserted one half to two times length of spikes, the lower on peduncles exserted 2-5 times length of spikes, the peduncles roughish, ancipital, the spikes oblong to globose, 2-3 cm. long, 1.5-2.5 cm. wide, loosely flowered, containing 10-20 strongly spreading perigynia in several rows; bracts leaflet-like, the lowest very long-sheathing, the upper shorter-sheathing, from much shorter than to exceeding inflorescence ; scales ovate, acute to cuspidate, long-persistent, pale-yellowish-brown with strongly 5-7-ribbed green center and hyaline margins, about half width and one third to one half length of perigynia; perigynia lanceolate-ovoid, suborbicular in cross-section, somewhat inflated, 8-11 mm. long, 3-3.5 mm. wide, olive-green or becoming brownish-yellow, subcoriaceous, strongly and coarsely 20-30-ribbed, densely puncticulate, rounded and slightly tapering and substipitate at base, tapering at apex into the bidentate, slightly serrulate, hyaline-tipped beak 2-3 mm. long, the teeth stiff, erect, ciliate-scabrous within; achenes broadly obovoid, 3-3.5 mm. long, 2-2.5 mm. wide, loosely enveloped in lower half of perigynium-body, triangular with concave sides, short-stipitate, yellowish, abruptly apiculate and jointed with the long, straight, slender style; stigmas 3, slender, reddish-brown, rather short.
Type locality: "Hab. New Orleans, Dr. T. Ingalls."
Distribution: Wet pine lands, North Carolina to Florida and Louisiana. (Specimens examined from South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana.)