Pubescent Sedge

Carex hirtifolia Mackenzie, Bull. Torrey Club 37: 244. 1910.
Carex pubesceyis t.lxh.;V:\d.Sp.V.i:2?<. 1S05. (Type from Pennsylvania.) iiot C . pubescens
Poir. 1789; nor C. />i(fei«ns-Gilib. 1792. Edritria pubescens Raf. Good Book 26. 1840. (Based on Carex pubescens Muhl.) Diemisa pubescens Raf. Good Book 27. 1840. (Based on Carex pubescens Muhl.)
Loosely cespitose, from slender but tough much branched rootstocks, the culms 3-6 dm. high, slender, not stiff, sharply triangular, pubescent, roughened above, aphyllopodic, exceeding the leaves, brownish-reddened at base, the lowermost sheaths short-bladed ; leaves with well-developed blades usually 3 or 4 to a fertile culm, more on the sterile, not clustered near the base, not septate-nodulose, the blades softly hirsute all over, flat, flaccid, short-acuminate, erect to spreading, from short to 3.5 dm. long, 2.5-7 mm. wide, the mid-lateral nerves prominent above, the sheaths tight, but ver>thin and ciimamon-brown-tinged ventrally, soon breaking, concave at mouth, the ligule conspicuous, longer than wide; terminal spike staminate, erect, sessile or short-pedunded, Unear, subclavate, 8-20 mm. long, 2.5 mm. wide, the scales obovate-lanceolate, whitish with a bright-green acuminate or excurrent midrib; pistillate spikes 2-4, erect, sessile or slightly peduncled, contiguous or the lowest somewhat separate, oblong or Unear-oblong, 5-16 mm. long, 4-5 mm. wide, closely 10-25-flowered in few rows; lowest bract 1.5-7 cm. long, 1-3 mm. wide, leaflet-like, green, long-acuminate, sheathless or very nearly so; upper bracts much shorter; scales obovate, strongly keeled, narrower than and but little covering the perigynia, ciliate, whitish with 3-nerved green center, awned by the excurrent midribs, these about reaching the end of the perigv-nia; perig>'nia strongly triangular, not at all inflated, elliptic-obovoid, 3.5-5 mm. long, 1.5 mm. vide, loosely pubescent, nerv-eless, membranaceous, green, short-stipitate, contracted to the base and into a beak 0.75 mm. long, erect, slender, cylindric, obliquely cut, at length bidentulate; achenes closely enveloped, sharply triangular with concave sides and rather prominent angles, obovoid, 2.5 mm. long, 1.5 mm. wide, sessile, ver>short-apiculate, jointed with the somewhat thickened style, scarcely one-half length of achene; stigmas three, slender, reddish-brown.
TvpE LOCALITY (of C pubescens Muhl., on which C. hirtifolia is based): "Habitat in Pennsylvania."
Distribution: Dry woods and thickets in calcareous districts, rich soil. New Brunswick to Minnesota, and southward to the District of Columbia. Kentucky, and Kansas. (Specimens examined from New Brunswick, Quebec, Maine. New Hampshire. Vermont. Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York. New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, District of Columbia, Ontario, Ohio, Indiana. Michigan, Wisconsin. Minnesota, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, Kansas.)