Star Sedge

Carex phyllomanica W. Boott, in S. Wats. Bot. Calif 2:233. 1880.
Densely cespitose. from short-prolonged ascending rootstocks, the culms slender but strict, 2.5-6 dm. high, sharply triangular at least above, smooth or slightly roughened immediately below head, shorter than or exceeding leaves, light-brown at base and conspicuously clothed with the dried-up leaves of the previous year, the lower bladeless; leaves 3 or 4 to a fertile culm, on lower third, but not bunched, the blades flat or somewhat canaliculate, mostly 1-2 dm. long, 1.75— 2.75 mm. wide, green, rather stiff, roughened towards apex, the sheaths tight, hyaline ventrallv, concave and scarcely thickened at mouth, the ligule short; spikes usually 3 or 4, approximate, forming a head 1.5-3.5 cm. long, the terminal gynaecandrous and clavate at base, the lateral obscurely gynaecandrous or pistillate, suborbicular, 7 mm. long and about as wide, with S— 15 widely spreading perigynia; lowest bract somewhat setaceous-prolonged, the others scale-like and inconspicuous; staminate scales ovate, obtuse, chestnut-brown with 3-nerved green center and shining white-hyaline margin; pistillate scales similar, as wide as but only about two thirds length of bodies of perigynia, not sharply keeled, the midvein obscure towards apex; perigynia plano-convex, ovate-lanceolate, thick, 3.75-4.5 mm. long, 1.5 mm. wide, subcoriaceous, green or in age olive-green, round-truncate and spongy at base, conspicuously many-striate, both dorsally and ventrallv sharp-edged to base, the margins scarcely raised, entire, tapering into a serrulate beak about half length of the body, the apex chestnut-brown-tingcd and somewhat hyaline-tipped, bidentate. the teeth short, both ventral false suture and dorsal suture conspicuous; achenes lenticular, ovate, 2 mm. long, 1.5 mm. wide, yellowish, substipitate, short-apiculate; style slender, jointed with achene, at length deciduous; stigmas two, slender, chestnut-brown, short.
Type locality: Sphagnum swamps, Mendocino City. California (Bolonder 1746).
DISTRIBUTION: Sphagnum swamps, southern Alaska to northern California, near tl i-.i
and in the coast ranges. (Specimens examined from northern California, Oregon, Washington, Vancouver, southern Alaska.)