Eastern Straw Sedge

The distribution of Carex straminea is discontinuous: scattered occurrences or clusters of occurrences are widely separated from each other.

Plants densely cespitose. Culms 35–100 cm. Leaves: sheaths adaxially green-veined nearly to collar, narrow hyaline band or sharp Y-shaped region at collar, adaxially firm, summits U-shaped; distal ligules 1.5–4.5 mm; blades 3–4 per fertile culm, 15–30 cm × 1.5–3 mm. Inflorescences nodding, open, yellow-brown to reddish brown, 3.5–8 cm × 5–14 mm; proximal internode 5–18 mm; 2d internode 5–17 mm; proximal bracts scalelike with bristle tips shorter than inflorescences. Spikes 3–7, distant, distinct, globose, (6–)9–14 × 6–9 mm, base usually attenuate, apex rounded; lateral spikes with staminate portion 2–6 mm at base. Pistillate scales reddish brown, with green or pale midstripe, lanceolate, 2.5–3 mm, shorter or longer and narrower than perigynia, margin reddish brown, apex firm, acuminate or awned to 0.8 mm. Staminate scales with reddish brown margins. Perigynia widely spreading, reddish brown, conspicuously 5-veined or more on each face, ± orbiculate, flat except over achene, 4–5.6 × 1.8–2.8 mm, 0.4–0.5 mm thick, base rounded, margin flat, including wing 0.6–0.9 mm wide; beak widely spreading, pale to reddish brown at tip, flat, ciliate-serrulate, abaxial suture with golden brown margin, distance from beak tip to achene 2–3 mm. Achenes elliptic, 1.5–1.8 × 0.8–1 mm, 0.3–0.4 mm thick. 2n = 74.

Conn., Del., D.C., Ill., Ind., Ky., Md., Mass., Mich., Mo., N.J., N.Y., N.C., Ohio, Pa., R.I., Va., W.Va., Wis.

Fruiting early summer.

Freshwater marshes, shores, and swales, wet woods, in sandy or peaty, acidic soils; 0–400m.

Carex richii (Fernald) Mackenzie

Carex richii (Fernald) Mackenzie, Bull Torrey Club 49: 362. 1923.
Carex straminea var. aperta Boott, 111. Carex 120. pl. 385. 1862. (Tvpe from Perm Van, New York.) Not C. aperta Boott, 1839.
'* Carex feslucacea Schkuhr" Tuckerm.; Boott, 111. Carex 120. 1862.
Carex lenera var. major Olney. Car. Bor.-Am. 3. 1871. (Based on C. straminea var. aperta Boott.)
Carex lenera var. Richii Fernald, Proc. Am. Acad. 37: 475. 1902. (Type from Stoneham, Massachusetts.)
Carex hormathodes var. Richii Fernald, Rhodora 8: 166. 1906. (Based on C. lenera var. Richii Fernald.)
Carex straminea var. lenera f. Richii "Fernald" Kiikenth. in F.ngler, Pflanzenreich 4 20 : 206. 1909. (Based on C. lenera var. Richii Fernald.)
Densely cespitose, the rootstocks very short-prolonged, black, fibrillose, the culms 6-!0 dm. high, very slender to base but erect, nodding, sharply triangular, very' rough beneath head, exceeding the leaves, dark-brownish at base and clothed with the dried-up leaves of the previous year, the lower bladeless; leaves of the year 2-4 to a culm, on lower fourth, but widely separate, the lower nodes often exposed, the blades flat, usually 1-3 dm. long, 1.5-2.5 mm. wide, longattenuate, the sheaths green-striate ventrally nearly to mouth, short-prolonged beyond base of blade, the ligule wider than long; spikes 4-8, strongly separate in a moniliform flexuous inflorescence, gynaecandrous, the staminate flowers conspicuous, tapering-clavate or in the terminal truncate-clavate at base, the pistillate part globose to ovoid-globose, 6-12 mm. long, 6-9 mm. wide, rounded at apex, and with about 20-30 spreading or spreading-ascending perigynia with conspicuous loosely ascending or spreading tips; lower bracts setaceous-prolonged, the upper scale-like; scales lanceolate, hyaline and yellowish-brown-tinged, acuminate or aristate from the sharp midvein, shorter and much narrower than the perigynia ; perigynia very flat and thin except where distended by achene, 4-5 mm. long, 2.5 mm. wide, membranaceous, greenish or in age straw-colored, the body suborbicular, widest near middle, strongly winged to base, serrulate above middle, finely about 10-nerved both dorsally and ventrally, sessile, round-truncate at base, abruptly contracted into a beak half length of body or more, flat, serrulate, red-tipped, obliquely cut dorsally, at length bidentulate; achenes lenticular, oblong-obovoid, 1.5 mm. long, 0.75 mm. wide, stipitate, yellowish-brown, apiculate; style slender, jointed with achene, at length deciduous; stigmas two, reddish, slender, short.
Type locality (of C. lenera var. Richii Fernald, on which C. Richii is based): Stoneham, Massachusetts (Rich).
Distribution : Swampy non-saline meadows, acid soils, Massachusetts to New Jersey and District of Columbia, and westward to Indiana. (Specimens examined from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York. New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware. Maryland, Indiana.)

Carex straminea Wilid.; Schkuhr, Riedgr. 49 pl.G,f.34. 1801.
Carex albolulescens Schw. Ann Lye N. Y. 1: 66. 1824. (Type from Carolina and Pennsylvania ) Carex straminea var. Schkuhrii Gay, Ann. Sci. Nat. II. 10: 363. 1838. (Technically based on
C. straminea Willd. I Vignea straminea Raf. Good Book 27. 1840. (Based on Carex straminea Willd.)
Densely cespitose, the rootstocks veryshort-prolonged, black, fibrillose, the culms slender to base, 2.5-9 dm. high, exceeding the leaves, sharply triangular and roughened on the angles immediately beneath the head, clothed at base with the dried-up leaves of the previous year, the lowest bladeless; leaves with well-developed blades 3-5 to a fertile culm, on the lower third, but much separated, the lower nodes exposed, the blades flat, green, erect-ascending, attenuate, usually 5-15 cm. long, 2-3 mm. wide, the margins rough, the sheaths rather loose, strongly green-striate ventrally nearly to mouth, yellowish-tinged, and continuous with ligule, very short-prolonged beyond base of blade at mouth; sterile culms conspicuous, the leaves more numerous; spikes 3-10, aggregated, approximate or more or less separate in a stiff head 2.5-6 cm. long, the spikes 6-10 mm. long, 4.5-6 mm. wide, ovoid, rounded at apex, the terminal long-clavate and staminate at base, the lateral rounded or short-clavate and sparingly staminate at base, with 15-30 appressed-ascending perigynia with erect or ascending or somewhat spreading beaks; bracts scale-like or the lowest often cuspidate-prolonged, 5-20 mm. long; scales ovate, acute or short-acuminate, white-hyaline w ith green strip on each side of midvein, slightly light-brownish-tinged, narrower and shorter than perigynia; perigynia thin except where distended by achene, 3.5 mm. long, 1.5-2 mm. wide, green or greenish, or in age straw-colored, wing-margined to base, serrulate nearly to middle, the body obovate-orbicular, widest towards top, many-nerved on outer face, slenderly about 5-nerved on inner face over achene, with an additional nerve in either margin, sessile, rounded at base, truncate-rounded at apex, very abruptly contracted into a beak one fourth to one half the length of body, the beak obliquely cut dorsally, at length bidentulate, flat and strongly serrulate; achenes lenticular, oval-oblong, 1.5 mm. long, 0.75 mm. wide, brownish, substipitate, slightly apiculate; style slender, obscurely jointed with achene, at length deciduous; stigmas two, light-reddish, short.
Type locality: "In nordlichen America."
Distribution: In acid soils in swampy woodlands, Florida to Texas, northward along the Atlantic Coast east of the mountains to southwestern Nova Scotia, and in the Mississippi Valley to Indiana. (Specimens examined from Nova Scotia, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania. Maryland, District of Columbia, Virginia. North Carolina, South Carolina Indiana, Illinois, Missouri. Tennessee, Georgia. Florida, Louisiana, Texas.)

Carex straminea, known as eastern straw sedge, is a species of sedge native to North America.