Carex firmula (Kük.) J. R. Starr

Uncinia tenuis Poepp.; Kunth, Enum. PI. 2: 525. 1837
" Uncinia gracilis Poepp." Decaisne. in Urv. Voy. Pole Sud Bot. 2: 14. Monocot. pi. 6,f. B. 1853.
Loosely cespitose and short-stoloniferous, the rootstock slender, light-yellowish-brown, the culms 1.5-3.5 dm. high, slender, not stiff, erect or more or less curved, smooth or slightly roughened beneath spike, obtusely triangular below, more sharply so above, from shorter than to somewhat exceeding the leaves, phyllopodic, light-yellowish-brown and somewhat fibrillose at base; sterile shoots aphyllopodic; leaves with well-developed blades 5-10 to a fertile culm, on lower third, the sheaths somewhat loose, not septate-nodulose, minutely granular-roughened dorsally, white-hyaline ventrally, concave and reddish-brown-tinged at mouth, the ligule short, much wider than long, the blades light-green, thinnish but firm, 0.5-2.5 dm. long, 1.5-2.5 mm. wide, long-attenuate, strongly rough-margined, flat below, somewhat channeled toward tip; spike solitary, androgynous, bractless, narrowly linear, 2.5-8 cm. long, 2.5-3 mm. wide (excluding awns), the pistillate part loosely flowered below, more closely flowered above, the 20-60 perigynia closely erect-appressed in few rows, the terminal staminate part very short, 4—8 mm. long, few-flowered; pistillate scales firm but not rigid, oblong-lanceolate, 3-4 mm. long, pale-green, the tip reddish-brown, the midvein green, sharply defined, the scales glabrous, not ciliate, articulate and somewhat cucuUate at tip, obtuse or acutish, slightly exceeded by perigynia, the base conspicuously saccate and persistent as wings 1 mm. long on the rachis of the spike, the upper part articulated to base and breaking off, early deciduous; staminate scales oblong-obovate, obtuse, rounded dorsally, persistent; perigynia oblanceolate, 3.5 mm. long, 1.5 mm. wide, obtusely triangular, somewhat flattened, membranaceous, smooth, the margins not at all ciliate, green or in age brownish-green, one nerve sharply defined, otherwise nerveless except at base, tapering at base into a short stipe, somewhat contracted towards apex into a beak 0.5 mm. long, the orifice truncate, whitish; achenes oblongobovoid, closely enveloped and about filling upper part of perigynium, 2.5 mm. long, 1.25 mm. wide, obtusely triangular, finely puncticulate, dark-yellowish-brown, rounded at base, truncate at apex; style short, straight, its base strongly bulbous-thickened, jointed with achene; stigmas three, short-exserted, reddish, slender, short; rachilla long-exserted, conspicuous, 3 times as long as the perigynium, the exserted part erect or ascending, smooth, slender but rigid, very strongly uncinate.
Type locai^ity: "Chile australis, in sylvis imperviis, supra saxa."
Distribution: High mountains from Costa Rica to southern Patagonia. (Specimens examined from Costa Rica, Pittier b" Durand, 1904.)