Shorthair Sedge

Carex exserta Mackenzie, Bull. Torrey Club 42 : 620. 1915
■•Carex filifolia Nutt." W. Boott, in S. Wats. Bot. Calif. 2: 229. 1880.
Carex filifolia var. eroslrata Kukenth. in Engler, Pflanzenreich 4"': 86. 1909. (Type from California. Not C. eroslrata Boott. 1894.
Ver>' densely cespitose, the rootstocks ver>' short, thick, lignescent, black, fibrillose, the culms filiform, wiry, 5-25 cm. high, obtusely triangular, smooth, equaling or exceeding leaves, brownish at base, the basal sheaths filamentose, the sheaths of the old leaves conspicuous, the blades usually broken off; leaves of the year with well-developed blades 2-4 to a fertile culm, clustered above base, acicular, channeled, little roughened towards apex, 1-10 cm. long, 0.25-0.5 mm. wide, the sheaths tight, hyaline ventrally, obliquely cut at mouth, the ligule very short; spike solitary, androgynous, 7-20 mm. long, the staminate part half or more than half the length of the whole, the staminate scales reddish-brown, broadly obovate, obtuse, hyalinemargined, the pistillate part up to 6 mm. wide, with 2-12 ascending perigynia, the scales orbicular-ovate, obtuse, dull-reddish-brown with hyaline margins, markedly exceeded by ripe perigynia, but partly enveloping them at base; lowest scale not bract-like; perigynia obovoid or obovoid-orbicular, obtusely triangular, 2.5 mm. long, nearly 2 mm. wide, rounded at base and apex, nerveless, but obscurely 2-ridged, membranaceous, essentially beakless, papillose-puberulent, brownish-tinged, hyaline and obliquely cut at mouth; achenes obovoid, triangular, the sides low-convex, closely filling perignia, sometimes rupturing it, sessile, brownish, 2 mm. long, apiculate, jointed with the short, thickish, black, conspicuously exserted style; stigmas three, slender, elongate, blackish; rachilla conspicuous.
Type locality (of C filifolia var. eroslrata Kukenth, on which C exserta is based): Echo Lake. El Dorado County, California. (Brainerd, July 11, 1897.)
Distribution: Dry places, from southern Oregon to southern California and western Nevada, mostly at elevations between 1500 and 3500 meters in the Sierra Nevada of California from El Dorado County to Tulare County, and in the San Bernardino range. (Specimens examined from all parts of range as given.)