American Woollyfruit Sedge

Carex lanuginosa Michx. Fl. Bor. Am. 2: 175. 1803
Carex pellita Muhl.; Willd. Sp. PL 4: 302. 1805. (Type from Pennsylvania.)
Diemisa pellita Raf. Good Book 27. 1840. (Based on Carex pellita Muhl.)
Carex Watsoni Olney, in S. Wats. Bot. King's Expl. 370. 1871. (Type from Carson City, Nevada.)
Not C. Watsoni Boott, 1867, as synonym; nor C. Watsoniana Steud. 1855. "Carex aematorhyncha Desv." Olney, in S. Wats. Bot. King's Expl. 373. 1871. Carex filiformis var. latifolia Bock. Linnaea 41: 309. 1877. (Based on C. lanuginosa Michx.) Carex filif or mis var. aematorhyncha W. Boott, in S. Wats. Bot. Calif. 2: 250. 1880. (As to plant
described only; not C. aematorhyncha Desv.) Carex filiformis var. lanuginosa B. S. P. Prel. Cat. N. Y. 63. 1888. (Based on C. lanuginosa Michx.) Carex lanuginosa var. kansana Britton; Britt. & Brown, 111. Fl. 1 : 305. 1896. (Type from Kansas.) Carex lasiocarpa var. lanuginosa Kukenth. in Engler, Pflanzenreich 4-°: 748. 1909. (Based on C.
lanuginosa Michx.) Carex lasiocarpa var. lanuginosa f. kansana "Britt." Kukenth. in Engler, Pflanzenreich, 4-°: 748.
1909. (Based on C. lanuginosa var. kansana Britton.)
Cespitose and freely long-stoloniferous, the stolons horizontal, long, tough, scaly, the culms 3-10 dm. high, in large beds, stiff, erect, sharply triangular, rough above, aphyllopodic, dark-purplish-red at base, the lower sheaths breaking and becoming more or less strongly filamentose; sterile shoots numerous, elongate; leaves with well-developed blades 2-5 to a fertile culm, more numerous on the sterile shoots, septate-nodulose, the blades dull-green, thinnish, flat with revolute margins, often exceeding the culms, 2-6 dm. long, 1.5-5 mm. wide, long-attenuate, rough, especially towards the tip; sheaths more or less purplish-tinged and deeply concave at mouth, the ligule as long as wide; staminate spikes usually 2 (the lower often small), slender, erect, long-peduncled, 2-6 cm. long, 2.5-4 mm. wide, the scales oblanceolate, acute to cuspidate, smooth or subciliate, light-reddish-brown with lighter center and dull-hyaline margins; pistillate spikes 2 or 3, widely separate, erect, sessile or shortpeduncled, oblong-cylindric, 1.5-5 cm. long, 5-8 mm. wide, closely many-flowered, the perigynia 25-75, ascending in several to many rows; bracts sheathless or very short-sheathing, the blade of the lowest usually moderately exceeding the culm ; scales lanceolate, long-acuminate, mucronate or awned, more or less ciliate, narrower than the perigynia, the lower usually exceeding the perigynia, the upper shorter, reddish-brown with broad 3-nerved green center and hyaline margins; perigynia broadly obovoid or ovoid, 2.5-3.5 mm. long, 1.75-2 mm. wide, suborbicular in cross-section, somewhat inflated, coriaceous, dull-brownish-green, densely softhairy, the numerous ribs usually largely hidden, sessile, rounded at base, abruptly very shortbeaked, the beak 1 mm. long, deeply bidentate, the teeth erect, 0.5 mm. long; achenes broadly ovoid, triangular with concave sides and blunt angles, rather loosely enveloped, 1.75-2 mm. long, 1.5 mm. wide, sessile or nearly so, yellowish-brown, punctate, short-apiculate, jointed with the very short, straight style; stigmas 3, slender, blackish.
Type locality: "Hab. ad lacus Mistassins, " Quebec.
Distribution: Sunny swampy places, mostly in calcareous soils, New Brunswick to British Columbia, and southward to Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas, New Mexico, and southern California. One of our most widely distributed species. (Specimens examined from New Brunswick, Quebec, Ontario, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, District of Columbia, Tennessee, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, Idaho, British Columbia, including Vancouver Island, Washington, Oregon, California.)