Abruptbeak Sedge

Plants densely cespitose. Culms 18–66 cm. Leaves: sheaths adaxially white-hyaline, often tinged brown distally, summits U-shaped or rounded, sometimes prolonged beyond collar; distal ligules 1–3(–4.5) mm; blades 3–6 per fertile culm, 10–30(–45) cm × 1.5–3.7(–4.9) mm. Inflorescences dense or open, brown and green, 1.2–2.2 cm × (6–)9–18 mm; proximal internode 1–3 mm; 2d internode 1–2 mm, these 2 internodes collectively less than 1/3 as long as inflorescences; proximal bracts bristlelike, shorter than inflorescences. Spikes 4–9, distinct or densely aggregated and individually indistinct, usually ovoid to broadly ovoid, 4.4–10.8 × 2.7–8.4 mm, base and apex acute to rounded. Pistillate scales red-brown or chestnut to coppery, with green, gold, or light brown midstripe, usually ovate, 2.4–3.9 mm, shorter than perigynia, width less than or equal to perigynia, margin white, 0–0.05 mm wide, apex obtuse to acuminate. Perigynia appressed-ascending to ascending-spreading, red-brown, coppery, or chestnut, conspicuously (5–)7–10-veined abaxially, conspicuously 3–8-veined adaxially, veins reaching top of achene, elliptic to lance-ovate, plano-convex to biconvex or, sometimes, flat around achene, (2.9–)3.6–5.4 × 1–2.1 mm, 0.4–0.5(–0.6) mm thick, margin flat, including wing usually 0.2–0.3 mm wide, often incurved adaxially, perigynia then boat-shaped, ciliate-serrulate on distal body; beak coppery or dark brown at tip, occasionally narrowly flattened, cylindric, unwinged, usually less than 1 mm, ± entire for 0.5–0.8 mm, abaxial suture usually with conspicuous white margin, distance from beak tip to achene (1.6–)2–2.3 mm. Achenes narrowly compressed elliptic to ovate-quadrate, 1.2–1.8 × 0.7–1.1 mm, (0.3–)0.4–0.5 mm thick.

Calif., Idaho, Nev., Oreg.

Fruiting summer.

Moist mountain meadows and slopes; 1400–3300m.

Carex abrupta Mackenzie, Bull. Torrey Club 43: 618. 1917
^ Carex nervina L. H. Bailey Parish. Bull. So. Calif. Acad. 5: 26. 1906. " Carex fesliva slricla L. H. Bailey " Parish. Bull. Soc. Calif. Acad. 5: 53. in part. 1906.
Densely cespitose, the rootstocks very short, brownish, fibrillose, the culms 4-6 dm. high, slender but erect, triangular, smooth, much exceeding the leaves, aphyllopodic, light-brownish at base, the dried-up leaves of the previous year inconspicuous, short-bladed or bladeless; sterile shoots less numerous than fertile, with 4-6 erect leaves; fertile culms normally making growth in one year, with 3 or 4 will -developed leaves just above the base, the blades flat, light-green, thin, erect, 5 — 15 cm long, 1.5—2.5 mm. wide, the sheaths tight, hyaline and thin ventrally, prolonged beyond base of blade and continuous with ligule; Sterile shoots with similar leaves; spikes 4-8, very densely aggregated in a suborbicular head 9 17 mm. long and nearly as thick, the spikes gynaecandrous, with few staminate flowers, ovoid, 5-8 mm. long, 5-6 mm. wide, rounded at base and apex, tinperigynia 10 20 in * vera! rows, ascending;
bracts scale like; scales ovate, dull-reddishor chestnut brown with greenish Center and at length hyaline margins, the midvein OOt COnSpicUOl I and shorter than
perigynia; p eri g y nia plano-con vex , oblong-lanceolate or oblong-ovate, l -7i I nun. long, 1.5 mm. wide, m em br a naceous, soon light-brownish tinged, with several conspicuous alendei raised
Oil Ix.th faces, rather narrowly wing-margined to tinrounded bate, slight! sessile at base, the body serrulate on the margins above, abruptly contracted into a slendertipped beak one third to one fourth the length of the body, terete, dark, with smooth margins and conspicuously white-hyaline, bidentulate apex, strongly obliquely cut dorsally; achenes lenticular, oblong-ovoid, 1.8 mm. long, nearly 1 mm. wide, yellowish, substipitate, apiculate; style slender, straight, jointed with achene, at length deciduous; stigmas two, slender, lightreddish-brown, rather short.
Type locality: West Branch of North Fork of Feather River, near Stirling, Butte County, California (Heller 10820).
Distribution: Mountains of southern Oregon and northern California, and in California southward through the Sierra Nevada and in the higher southern mountains. (Specimens examined showing range as given.)

Carex abrupta is a species of sedge known by the common name abrupt-beaked sedge or abruptbeak sedge. It is native to the western United States from California to Idaho, where it grows in moist mountain habitat such as meadows.