Hair Like Sedge

Carex capillaris L. Sp. PI. 977. 1753
Carex pendula Genersich, Fl. Seep. Elench. no. 871. 1798. (Type from Hungary.)
Carex plena Clairv. Man. 292. 1811. (Type from Switzerland.)
Carex chlorostachys Steven, Mem. Soc. Nat. Mosc. 4: 68. 1813. (Type from Siberia.)
Trasus capillaris S. F. Gray, Nat. Arr. Brit. PI. 2: 66. 1821. (Based on Carex capillaris L.)
Loxotrema capillaris Raf. Good Book 25. 1840. (Based on Carex capillaris L.)
Carex capillaris var. a (tenuior) Drejer, Nat. Tidssk. 3: 471. 1841. (Type from Iceland.)
Carex capillaris var. (major) Drejer, Nat. Tidssk. 3: 472. 1841. (Type from Greenland.)
Carex nana Cham.; Steud. Syn. Cyp. 228. 1855. (Type from Unalaska.) Not C. nana Lam. 1789.
Carex saskatschewana Bock. Linnaea 41 : 159. 1877. (Type from Saskatchewan.)
Carex Krausei Bock. Bot. Jahrb. 7:279. 1886. (Type from Alaska.)
Carex capillaris var. Krausei Krantz; Macoun, Cat. Can. PI. 4: 163. 1888. (Based on C. Krausei
Bock.) Carex capillaris var. minima G. Beck. Fl. Nied.-Oesterr. 144. 1890. (Type from central Europe.) Carex capillaris subsp. Karoi Freyn, Osterr. Bot. Zeits. 40: 303. 1890. (Type from eastern Siberia.) Carex capillaris f. alpestris Norman, Forh. Vid.-Selsk. Christ. 27 ,s : 52, without description. 1893.
(Type from Norway.) Carex Chamissonis Meinsh. Acta Hort. Petrop. 18: 361. 1901. Not C. Chamissoi Bock. 187, Carex capillaris var. elongata Olney, Caric. -Bor. Am. 5, without description. 1871; Fernald, Proc.
Am. Acad. 37: 509. 1902. (Type from Twin Lakes, Colorado.) Carex capillaris f. saskatchewana "L. H. Bailey" Kukenth. in Engler, Pflanzenreich 4 20 : 590. 1909.
(Based on C. saskatchewana Bock.) Carex capillaris f. major "Drejer" Kukenth. in Engler, Pflanzenreich 4 20 : 590. 1909. (Based on
C. capillaris var. (major) Drejer.) Carex capillaris f. minima "Beck" Kukenth. in Engler, Pflanzenreich 4 !0 : 590. 1909. (Based on
C. capillaris var. minima Beck.) Carex capillaris var. nana Kukenth. in Engler, Pflanzenreich 4 20 : 591. 1909. (Based on C. nana
Cham.) Carex capillaris var. nana f. Krausei Kukenth. in Engler, Pflanzenreich 4 20 : 591. 1909. (Based on
C. Krausei Bock.)
Cespitose in small dense clumps, the rootstocks short, the stolons very short, ascending, the culms 0.3-6 dm. high, erect or decumbent, normally very slender, occasionally stiff, usually much exceeding the leaves, phyllopodic, obtusely triangular, smooth, brownish-tinged or purplish-brown-tinged and more or less fibrillose at base, the dried-up leaves of the previous year conspicuous; leaves with well-developed blades usually 5-8 to a fertile culm, clustered toward the base, the blades flat or slightly channeled toward the base, deep-green or lightgreen, thin, firm, 2-9 cm. long, usually 0.75-2.5 mm. wide, roughened at apex, the sheaths tight, truncate at mouth, the ligule very short; terminal spikes stamina te (sometimes gynaecandrous), very slender, 4-8 mm. long, barely 1 mm. wide, several-flowered, usually overtopped by the uppermost pistillate spike, the peduncle slender, short, roughish, the scales oblongobovate to lanceolate, acute or obtuse, yellowish-straw-colored with greenish midrib and whitehyaline margins; pistillate spikes 2 or 3, on very slender, nearly smooth, elongate, drooping peduncles, approximate to widely separate, linear-oblong, 5-15 mm. long, 3-4 mm. wide, containing 3-20 ascending perigynia, loosely arranged in few rows; bracts long-sheathing, tubular, the sheaths green, the blades leaflet-like, rather short, usually strongly exceeded by culm; scales closely appressed, orbicular-ovate, obtuse or acute, rather wider but much shorter than the perigynia, thin, smooth, early-deciduous, light-chestnut, with lighter midrib and conspicuous white-hyaline apex and less conspicuous margins; perigynia ovoid-lanceolate, 2.5-3 mm. long, 0.75 mm. wide, obtusely triangular in cross-section, slightly inflated, slightly ciliate, serrulate, membranaceous, greenish-brown, 2-ribbed, otherwise nerveless, rounded at base and strongly stipitate, contracted into a minutely white-hyaline-tipped, conic, entire or nearly so, straight beak 1 mm. long, with oblique orifice; achenes obovoid, 1.5 mm. long, 0.75 mm. wide, triangular with brownish concave sides and blunt greenish angles, closely filling body of perigynium, granular, substipitate, short-apiculate, jointed with the short slender style; stigmas 3, slender, brownish, short.
Type locality: "Habitat in Sueciae pratis humidis."
Distribution: Dry sunny places in calcareous districts, Greenland to Alaska, and southward to Maine, the White Mountains of New Hampshire, northern New York, Michigan, and in the Rocky Mountains to New Mexico and Nevada. Widely distributed in arctic-alpine Eurasia. (Specimens examined from Greenland, Ellesmereland, Labrador, Newfoundland, Quebec, New Brunswick, Maine, New Hampshire, New York, Ontario, Michigan, Wisconsin, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Montana, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, British Columbia, Yukon, Mackenzie.)