Hitchcock's Sedge

Carex hitchcockiana is infrequent and local. It often grows with C. albursina, C. jamesii, and C. oligocarpa.

Plants densely cespitose; rhizome internodes 1.8–2.5 mm thick. Culms yellow-brown to dark brown at base, 15–60 cm. Leaves: sheaths hispidulous; blades green, widest blades (3–)3.4–5.4(–6.5) mm wide, glabrous abaxially or sparsely hispidulous on midrib. Inflorescences 0.19–0.48 of culm height; peduncles of lateral spikes smooth or barely scaberulous; peduncles of terminal spikes (4.2–)7.5–37(–43) mm, much exceeding lateral spikes; proximal bract with sheath tight, abaxially scabrous, sheath front apex convex, elongated (0.6–)1.6–4.9(–6.6) mm beyond apex; ligules 3.3–5 mm; distal bract usually much exceeding terminal spike. Spikes 3–5, separate or distal 2–4 spikes overlapping; lateral spikes pistillate, with 2–7 perigynia, 6–29 × 3.8–6.8 mm, ratio of spike length (in mm) to flower number = 3.5–4.8; longest terminal spikes 14–34(–42) × 1.3–3(–3.5) mm. Pistillate scales (4.1–)5.6–9.4(–11.6) × 1.6–2.6(–3.3) mm, margins whitish, denticulate, apex with awn 1.1–6.8 mm. Staminate scales 5.2–6.9 × 1.5–1.7 mm. Anthers 3.4–4.2 mm. Perigynia distichously imbricate, 52–59-veined, unwrinkled, obovoid or narrowly obovoid, obtusely triangular in cross section, (4.5–)4.6–5.6(–6.2) × 1.9–2.2(–2.3) mm, (2.1–)2.3–2.8(–3) times as long as wide, dull, base gradually tapered, apex abruptly contracted; beak excurved, (0.5–)0.8–1.3 mm. Achenes obovoid-ellipsoid, 3.2–3.9(–4.2) × (1.6–)1.8–2.1 mm, tightly enveloped by perigynia; stipe bent 45–70°, 0.4–0.6 mm; beak bent more than 90°, 0.3–0.5 mm.

Ont., Que.; Ala., Ark., Conn., D.C., Ill., Ind., Iowa, Kans., Ky., Md., Mass., Mich., Minn., Mo., N.J., N.Y., Ohio, Okla., Pa., Tenn., Vt., Va., W.Va., Wis.

Fruiting spring–summer.

Mesic, usually rocky, deciduous forests, usually with highly diverse vascular plant communities, often in calcium-rich loams on slopes above streams; 60–800m.

Carex oligocarpa Willdenow var. hitchcockiana (Dewey) Kükenthal

Carex hitchcockiana Dewey, Am. Jour. Sci. 10: 274 pi. E,f. 17. 1826.
"Carex Hitchcockii Dewey" Eaton, Man. ed. 5. 158. 1829. (Change in form of name only.) Loxotrema Hitchcocki Raf. Good Book 25. 1840. (Based on Carex Hitchcockiana Dewey.) Carex oligocarpa var. major Torr. Fl. N. Y. 2: 406. 1843. (Based on C. Hitchcockiana Dewey.) Carex oligocarpa var. Hitchcockiana Bock. Linnaea 41: 149. 1877. (Based on C. Hitchcockiana
Dewey.) Carex Hitchcockiana var. Iriflora Peck; Howe, Ann. Rep. N. Y. State Mus. 48: 164. 1897. (Type
from New York.) Carex oligocarpa var. Hitchcockiana f. triflora "Peck" Kiikenth. in Engler, Pflanzenreich 4 20 : 521.
1909. (Based on C. oligocarpa var. triflora Peck.)
Densely cespitose, the rootstocks very short, the clumps rather small, the culms slender, erect or ascending, 1.5-7 dm. high, sharply triangular, roughened above, evenly leafy, exceeded by the leaf -like bracts and often by the leaves, mostly lateral and aphyllopodic, brownishtinged at base; sterile shoots elongate, conspicuous; leaves (not bracts) usually 3 or 4 to a culm, not clustered near the base, the blades flat, thin, light-green, ascending, 1-2.5 dm. long, 3-7 mm. wide, roughened on the margins and toward the apex on the veins, the midvein conspicuous on the lower surface and the two mid-lateral veins on the upper; sheaths long, tight, hispidulous dorsally, conspicuously prolonged at mouth beyond base of blade, and (especially the lower) cinnamon-brown-tinged, the ligule long, ciliate; staminate spike sessile or more or less strongly peduncled, linear, 1-3 cm. long, 2-3 mm. wide, the peduncle rough, the scales oblongobovate, obtuse to acute, white-hyaline with 3-nerved green center; pistillate spikes 3 or 4, 1-2.5 cm. long, 5 mm. wide, the lowest at least widely separate, on exserted peduncles, erect, loosely flowered, bearing 1-9 ascending perigynia alternately on the zigzag rachis; bracts leaflike, reduced upwards, their sheaths strongly rough-hispidulous; scales ovate or obovate, strongly rough-awned, serrulate-ciliolate, sharply keeled, from shorter to longer than the perigynia, white-hyaline with 3-nerved green center; perigynia obovoid, obtusely triangular, not at all inflated, 4.5-5 mm. long, 2.5 mm. wide, subcoriaceous, yellowish-green or grayishgreen, puncticulate, finely impressed with many undulate nerves, tapering and spongy at base, abruptly contracted at apex into a straight or slightly bent, conspicuous beak 1 mm. long with entire hyaline orifice; achenes broadly obovoid, 3 mm. long, 2 mm. wide, closely filling perigynium, triangular with slightly concave sides and blunt angles, yellowish-brown, granular, short-stipitate, abruptly bent-apiculate, jointed with the short thickish style; stigmas 3, reddish-brown, slender.
Type locality: "Grows on the borders of mountain woods, Williamstown " (Massachusetts).
Distribution: Woods and thickets in calcareous districts, Vermont and Ontario to Wisconsin, and southward to West Virginia, Kentucky, and western Missouri. (Specimens examined from Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, District of Columbia, West Virginia, Virginia, Ontario, Ohio; Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri.)

Carex hitchcockiana, common name Hitchcock's sedge, is a Carex species that is native to North America. It is listed as endangered in Maryland, as threatened in New York and Tennessee, and as a species of special concern in Connecticut and Massachusetts.