Coastal Sand Sedge

Carex incurviformis is an alpine member of the C. maritima complex, and seems clearly (though subtly) distinct from the widespread and variable C. maritima, which in North America is a lowland and mostly coastal species. It is tentatively accorded species rank pending a comprehensive, worldwide revision of the complex even though, in other regions, apparently typical C. maritima does occur in alpine settings.

Plants of California especially and, to a lesser extent, the southern Rockies have broader, blunter scales with slighty wider hyaline margins than plants of the northern Rockies. California plants were described as Carex danaensis Stacey. As more collections accumulated, F. J. Hermann (1955) noted that the distinctions between C. danaensis and C. incurviformis were slight. He recognized C. danaensis only as a variety of C. incurviformis and expanded its range to include Colorado. With even more material the distinctions appear to be no more than a regional trend and are not given formal recognition.

Plants colonial. Culms curved, bluntly trigonous, 2–12 cm, smooth-angled distally. Leaves: basal sheaths brown; ligules 0.3–0.6 mm; blades involute, ± equaling culms, 0.5–1.5 mm wide. Inflorescences 0.5–1.2 cm; spikes (3–)5–7, essentially indistinguishable in dense hemispheric head. Pistillate scales brown to dark brown, with narrow whitish hyaline margins, ovate, conspicuously shorter than perigynia, apex ± acute to acuminate, body shiny. Anthers 0.9–1.4 mm. Perigynia light brown proximally, dark brown distally, usually strongly 8–11-veined abaxially, 4–11-veined adaxially, not or little inflated, narrowly elliptic, 2.9–3.9 × 1–1.5(–1.6) mm, leathery, dull to satiny; stipe 0.2–0.4 mm; beak poorly defined, 0.4–0.9 mm, smooth or slightly scabrous-margined.

Alta., B.C.; Alaska, Calif., Colo., Mont., Wyo.

Fruiting Jun–Aug.

Alpine tundra, on wet gravels, rocky ledges, often in mossy turf or moss hummocks, usually uncommon; 1900–4400m.

Carex danaensis Stacey; C. incurviformis var. danaensis (Stacey) F. J. Hermann; C. maritima Gunnerus var. incurviformis (Mackenzie) B. Boivin

Carex incurviformis Mackenzie, in Rydb Fl. Rocky Mts. 120. 1917.
Rootstocks slender, brownish or blackish, long-creeping, scaly, the culms few together, low, 2-6 cm. high, erect or curved, slender, smooth, sharply triangular above, shorter than the leaves, brownish-tinged and fibrillose at base, the old leaves not conspicuous, the lower bladeless; leaves 4-8 to a culm, clustered near the base, thick, stiff, light-green, 1-4 cm. long, 0.751.5 ram. wide, flattened at base, involute above, the sheaths hyaline, truncate at mouth, the ligule very short; head globose-ovoid, 6-9 mm. long, 5-8 mm. thick, bractless, the spikes few, androgynous, densely aggregated and scarcely distinguishable, the staminate flowers inconspicuous, the perigynia few, ascending or in age spreading; .scales lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate, acuminate or acute, shorter and somewhat narrower than the perigynia, brown, with narrow hyaline margins and sharply defined lighter midvein or center; perigynia thick-plano-convex, oblong-oblanceolate, 3.25 mm. long, 1.25 ram. wide, very narrowly sharp-edged ventrally to base, the margins not serrulate, shining, membranaceous, scarcely inflated, with many slender but conspicuous impressed nerves on both sides, the upper part empty, dark-chestnut-brown at maturity, slenderly short-stipitate, roundtapering at base, contracted into a sraooth beak scarcely one third the length of the body, obliquely cleft dorsally, at length bidentulate. minutely hyaline at the orifice; achenes lenticular, quadrate-orbicular, yellowish-brown, 1.5 mm. long, 1 mm. wide, very short-stipitate, truncatcly apiculate, loosely enveloped; style short, slender, scarcely enlarged at base, jointed with the achene, deciduous; stigmas two, slender, elongate, light-brown.
Type locality: National Park, Banff, Alberta (Macoun. July 31, 1891).
Distribution: Sunny places in calcareous districts, on alpine peaks of the Canadian Rocky Mountains, in Alberta and British Columbia. (Specimens examined from Alberta and British Columbia.)