Carex longicaulis Boeckeler

Carex longicaulis Bock. Flora 65: 62. 1882
Carex ciliaris Fernald, Proc. Am. Acad. 43: 61. 1907. (Type from Lena, Hidalgo.)
Loosely cespitose and short-stoloniferous, from stout matted elongate rootstocks, the culms 2.5-6 dm. high, slender, stiff, erect, strongly exceeding the leaves, phyllopodic, sharply triangular, slightly pubescent but scarcely roughened, brownish-tinged at base, the dried-up leaves of the previous year conspicuous, the basal sheaths not filamentose; leaves with welldeveloped blades 6-12 to a fertile culm, clustered near the base, the blades light-green, flat with revolute margins, ciliate and sparingly pilose below, 5-20 cm. long, 2.5-3.5 mm. wide, strongly papillate, roughened towards the attenuate apex, the sheaths sparingly pilose dorsally, slightly yellowish-brown-tinged ventrally, the ligule very short, much wider than long; terminal spike staminate or usually with perigynia at base or middle, short-peduncled or nearly sessile, 12-18 mm. long, 2-3 mm. wide, the scales oblong-obovate, acuminate or acute, shortciliate, whitish-hyaline with 3-nerved green, straw-colored, or brownish center; pistillate spikes 2-5, erect, approximate or but little separate, sessile or the lower short-exsert-peduncled, oblong or linear-oblong, 6-18 mm. long, 4-6 mm. wide, densely 10-25-flowered, the perigynia ascending in few or several rows; lowest bract leaflet-like, exceeding the inflorescence, shortsheathing; upper bracts much reduced; scales ovate or ovate-lanceolate, cuspidate or acute, sharply keeled, glabrous or nearly so, white-hyaline with 3-nerved green center, slightly shorter and narrower than perigynia; perigynia 4 mm. long, the body obovoid, strongly triangular, 2 mm. wide, glabrous, membranaceous, light green, puncticulate, obscurely many-nerved, tapering at base, rather abruptly beaked, the beak 0.5-1 mm. long, flattened-subconic, obliquely cleft, sharply but not deeply bidentate; achenes short-obovoid, 2.5 mm. long, 1.75 mm. wide, triangular with concave sides, closely enveloped, slightly stipitate, apiculate, jointed with the short straight style; stigmas 3, slender, dark-reddish-brown.
Type locality: "In valli Mexico" (Schaffner 413).
Distribution: South Mexico amd Mexico State. (Specimens examined from Hidalgo and Mexico.)

Carex longicaulis is a tussock-forming species of perennial sedge in the family Cyperaceae. It is native to parts of Mexico.

The species was first formally described by the botanist Johann Otto Boeckeler in 1882 as a part of the work Flora. It has one synonym;

Carex ciliaris as described by Merritt Lyndon Fernald.