Broad Loose Flower Sedge

The Carex laxiflora complex contains a wide array of phenotypic variation and deserves further research. F. J. Hermann (1938) proposed the name C. laxiflora var. serrulata; however, among the numerous specimens of C. laxiflora we studied, the key characteristic of ciliate-serrulate bract-sheaths varied greatly.

Culms densely tufted, lateral or central, ascending or lax to decumbent, 39–47 cm × 0.8–2 mm. Leaves: basal sheaths light brown; sheaths 6–22 mm; blades ascending, midrib and 2 lateral veins developed, occasionally slightly corrugated, 19–25 cm × 5–26 mm, blades of overwintering leaves smooth or, rarely, sparsely papillose abaxially. Inflorescences: peduncles of proximal spikes erect, 0–3.4 cm, of lateral spikes 1.4–3.3(–5.3) times as long as spikes they subtend; of terminal spikes 1–2.2 cm. Bracts 7.2–17.5 cm × 2–8 mm, bract blade of distal lateral spikes linear, narrower than spikes, widest bract blade of distalmost lateral spike 0.5–3.4 mm wide. Spikes (3–)4 per culm; lateral spikes 9–33 × 3.2–4 mm; terminal spike linear to clavate, 23–24(–34) × 1.5–3 mm. Pistillate scales 2.5–3 × 1.2–1.5 mm, apex acute or apiculate. Staminate scales 3–3.5 × 1–1.5 mm, oblong-ovate, margins white-hyaline or brownish, apex obtuse or acute. Anthers 2.6–3 mm. Perigynia 3–20 per spike, usually separate, ratio of longer lateral spike length to perigynia number 1.9–3.4, ascending, conspicuously (22–)25–32-veined, (2.6–)3.2–4.1(–4.6) × 1.2–1.6 mm; beak straight, 0.5–1.4 mm. Achenes broadly ellipsoid, 1.8–2.2(–3.4) × 1–1.4 mm. 2n = 40.

N.S., Ont., Que.; Ala., Ark., Conn., Del., Ga., Ill., Ind., Ky., Maine, Md., Mass., Mich., Miss., Mo., N.H., N.J., N.Y., N.C., Ohio, Okla., Pa., R.I., S.C., Tenn., Vt., Va., W.Va., Wis.

Fruiting spring–early summer.

Dry or moist, deciduous or mixed deciduous-evergreen forests, higher elevations southward; 0–1000m.

Carex laxiflora var. serrulata F. J. Hermann

Carex laxiflora Lam. Enc}'c. 3: 392. 1791
Carex heterosperma Wahl. Sv. Vet.-Akad. Nya Handl. 24: 151. 1803. (Type from Pennsylvania.) Carex anceps Muhl.; Willd. Sp. PI. 4: 278. 1805. (Type from North America.) "Carex planlaginea Lam." Schkuhr, Riedgr. Nachtr. 63./. 195 (in part, and excl./. 70). 1806.
Carex nematoslachya Willd.; Schlecht. Linnaea 10: 264. 1835. (Type from eastern North America.)
Carex " nematosperma Willd." Kunth, Knnm. PI. 2: 456. 1837. (Misprint only.)
Deweya anceps Raf. Good Book 26. 1840. (Based on Carex anceps Muhl.)
Carex anceps var. palulifolia Dewey, in Wood, Class-Book 423. 1845. (Type Schkuhr /. 195 from
Pennsylvania.) Carex anceps var. angustifolia Dewey, in Wood, Class-Book 423. 1845. (Type Schkuhr/. 128 from
Pennsylvania.) Carex palulifolia Dewey, Am. Jour. Sci. II. 8 : 350. 1849. (Based on C. anceps var. patidifolia Dewey.) Carex laxiflora var. palulifolia Carey, in A. Gray, Man. ed. 2. 524. 1856. (Based on C. anceps var.
palulifolia Dewey.) Carex laxiflora var. planlaginea Boott, 111. Carex 37. 1858. (Based on .Schkuhr,/. 128, from Pennsylvania.) Carex laxiflora var. inlermedia a Boott, 111. Carex 1: 37. 1858. (Based on Schkuhr, /. 195, from
Pennsylvania.) Carex laxiflora var. helerosperma B. S. P. Prel. Cat. N. Y. 63. 1888. (Based on C. heterosperma Wahl.)
Densely cespitose, the rootstocks usually very short, the clumps medium-sized, the culms 1.5-4 dm. high, lateral and aphyllopodic, infrequently central, erect or ascending, sharply triangular, leafy throughout, narrowly winged, smooth or nearly so on the angles, conspicuously white-striolate, more or less flattened in drying, usually noticeably exceeding the leaves and exceeding or moderately exceeded by the upper bracts, brownish at base; sterile shoots reduced to tufts of large leaves and not forming long conspicuous culms; leaf -blades of the sterile shoots ascending, flat, thin, flaccid, or in age stiffer, long-persistent, usually 1-2.5 dm. long, 7-20 mm. wide, roughened on the margins and towards the apex on the veins, short-acute, the edges rarely strongly parallel, conspicuously white-striolate beneath, the midvein prominent on the lower surface and the two mid-lateral veins on the upper, the superficial cells usually not prominent ; well-developed fertile-culm leaves usually about 2, the blades similar but smaller, 7-15 cm. long, 5-8 mm. wide; sheaths long, enlarged upward, very minutely serrulate, appearing smooth, very thin ventrally, the ligule very long and prominent; staminate spike linear, more or less strongly peduncled, exceeding the uppermost pistillate one, 1-2 cm. long, 2-3 mm. wide, the scales oblong-obovate, obtuse to short-acuminate, white-hyaline with green, threenerved center, often strongly tinged with yellowish-brown, the peduncle slightly ancipital, nearly smooth; pistillate spikes usually 3 or 4, erect, the lower two distant, the lower at least longpeduncled (the peduncles smooth, ancipital), the upper sessile or nearly so, narrowly linear, 1.5-4.5 cm. long, 2-3 mm. wide, loosely and alternately 5-15-flowered, the perigynia appressedascending; bracts strongly sheathing, the lower leaf-like, the upper smaller, the sheaths slightly roughened on the margins, prolonged at mouth beyond base of blade; scales broadly ovate to oblong-obovate, the lower awned or cuspidate, the upper sometimes obtuse, white-hyaline with strong, 3-nerved, green center, narrower than and usually about half the length of the perigynia; perigynia obovoid, not at all inflated, obtusely triangular below, 3-4.25 mm. long, 1.5 mm. wide, membranaceous, light-green, puncticulate, glabrous, finely many-nerved, strongly stipitate, narrowed into a spongy base and abruptly narrowed at apex into a prominent but short beak, 0.5 mm. long, straight or slightly curved, with entire white-hyaline orifice; achenes broadly obovoid, closely filling body of perigynium, 1.75 mm. long, 1.5 mm. wide, triangular with concave sides and blunt angles, granular, yellowish-brow-n, substipitate, short-apiculate, jointed with the very short, often bent, slender, style; stigmas three, slender, reddish-brown, rather short; anthers 2-3.5 mm. long.
Type locality: "Cette espece bien distincte croit dans le New-York, la Pensylvanie&la Virginie." Distribution: Dry woods, Nova Scotia to Michigan, and southward, mostly in the mountains, to North Carolina and Kentucky. Erroneously recorded from Oregon. (Specimens examined from Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, District of Columbia, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, Ontario, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky.)