False Hair Sedge

Carex bulbostylis is common within much of its rather narrow range. It often occurs with C. amphibola and C. planispicata.

Plants densely cespitose; rhizome internodes 1.6–2.2 mm thick. Culms strongly purple-red to 3–7.4 cm high at base, 10–65 cm. Leaves: sheaths glabrous; blades green, widest blades 2.2–3.5(–3.9) mm wide, smooth abaxially. Inflorescences 0.31–0.94 of culm height; peduncles of lateral spikes barely scaberulous or smooth; peduncles of terminal spikes 1.8–28 mm, usually slightly exceeding lateral spikes; proximal bract sheaths tight, abaxially glabrous, sheath front convex, elongated 0.3–1.1(–1.7) mm beyond apex; ligules 0.4–2.2 mm; distal bract usually much exceeding terminal spike. Spikes 4–5, widely separate or distal 2–3 spikes overlapping; lateral spikes pistillate, with (1–)3–9(–11) perigynia, 4–19 × 5.1–8.2(–10.2) mm, ratio of spike length (in mm) to flower number = 1.4–1.9; terminal spikes (7–)10–29 × 1.1–2.1(–3.1) mm. Pistillate scales 2.8–5.4 × 1.7–2.5 mm, margins whitish, entire, apex with awn 0.8–2.6 mm. Staminate scales 3.6–5 × 1–1.8 mm. Anthers 2.9–3.7 mm. Perigynia distichously imbricate, 51–67-veined, inflated, unwrinkled, oblong-obovoid, orbicular or suborbicular in cross section, 3.6–4.4 × (1.8–)2–2.5(–2.8) mm, 1.6–2(–2.1) times as long as wide, dull, base very gradually tapered, apex abruptly contracted; beak straight, 0–0.2(–0.3) mm. Achenes obovoid, 2.6–3.3 × 1.6–2.1 mm, loosely enveloped by perigynia; stipe straight, 0.3–0.7 mm; beak straight, 0.05–0.3 mm.

Ark., La., Miss., Okla., Tenn., Tex.

Fruiting spring.

Mesic deciduous forests, on flood plains and low on slopes just above flood plains, usually in calcium-rich loams and clay-loams; 30–300m.

Carex amphibola Steudel var. globosa (L. H. Bailey) L. H. Bailey; C. grisea Wahlenberg var. globosa L. H. Bailey

Carex bulbostylis Mackenzie, Bull. Torrey Club
42: 617. 1915.
Carex grisea var. globosa L. H. Bailey, in A. Gray, Man. ed. 6. 605. 1890. (At least in part; based
on specimens from Missouri, Kansas, and southward.) Carex amphibola var. globosa L. H. Bailey, Contr. U. S. Nat. Herb. 2: 480. 1894. (Based on C.
grisea var. globosa L. H. Bailey.)
Cespitose, the rootstocks short, tough, woody, rather slender, the culms 2-4 dm. high, central and phyllopodic or lateral and aphyllopodic, leafy, slender, erect or ascending, obtusely triangular, smooth or nearly so, strongly purplish-tinged at base, exceeding the leaves, but exceeded by the bracts; sterile shoots elongate; leaves with well-developed blades 4-10 to a culm, the blades flat with revolute margins, light-green or glaucous-green, thin, erect, longtapering, mostly 1-2 dm. long, or up to 3 dm. on sterile shoots, 2.5-3.5 mm. wide; sheaths smooth or nearly so, tight, more or less red-dotted ventrally, prolonged at mouth beyond base of blade, the ligule short, much wider than long; staminate spike apparently long-peduncled (actually nearly sessile, the uppermost pistillate spike usually being abortive and with shortsheathing bract), 2-3 cm. long, 2.5-3.5 mm. wide, the scales oblong-obovate, whitish with slightly excurrent, 3-nerved, green midrib, reddish-brown-tinged and dotted; developed pistillate spikes 3 or 4, widely separate, the lower on slender erect rough peduncles, the upper scarcely exsert-peduncled, 3-7-flowered, oblong or suborbicular, 7-20 mm. long, 6-7 mm. wide, the perigynia appressed-ascending; bracts leaf -like, strongly sheathing, the sheaths tight; scales broadly ovate, white-hyaline and reddish-brown-tinged, with sharply-keeled, 3-nerved, green center exserted as a long cusp, the body narrower than and about half the length of the perigynia; perigynia broadly obovoid, globose in cross-section, turgid, 4.5 mm. long, 2.5 mm. wide, finely impressed with many nerves, green, becoming greenish-strawcolored, membranaceous, puncticulate, minutely hispidulous when young, rounded at base and apex, the orifice entire; achenes obovoid, triangular with concave sides and blunt angles, 3 mm. long, 2 mm. wide, granular, yellowish, substipitate, tapering at base, minutely apiculate, jointed with the conspicuously enlarged bulbous base of the very short deciduous style ; stigmas 3. short, reddish-brown.
Type locality: Valley of the Trinity River, Fort Worth, Texas (Ruth 360).
Distribution: Dry woodlands in calcareous districts, Louisiana and western Arkansas to northeastern and central Texas. (Specimens examined from Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas.)

Carex bulbostylis, known as the false hair sedge, is a species of sedge native to the southcentral and southeastern United States. It was first formally named by Kenneth Mackenzie in 1915. It is also known as the eastern narrowleaf sedge, thick style sedge, and globose sedge.

It has previously been treated as a variety of both Carex amphibola and Carex grisea.