Carex grayii

Carex grayii Carey, Am. Jour. Sci. II. 4: 22. 1847
Carex intumescens var. globularis A. Gray, Ann. Lye. N. Y. 3 : 236. 1835. (Type from Utica, New
►* York.) Not C. globularis L. 1753.
Carex Grayi var. hispidula A. Gray; L. H. Bailey, Mem. Torrey Club 1: 54. 1889. (Type from
Menard County, Illinois.) Carex Asa-Grayi L. H. Bailey, Bull. Torrey Club 20: 427. 1893. (Based on C. Grayii Carey.) Carex Asa-Grayi var. hispidula L. H. Bailey, Bull. Torrey Club 20: 427. 1893. (Based on C. Grayi
var. hispidula Gray.)
Cespitose, the rootstocks very short, without long horizontal stolons, thickish, tough, blackish, the clumps large, the culms 3-10 dm. high, leafy throughout, rather stout, erect, much exceeded by upper leaves, phyllopodic, sharply triangular, roughened immediately beneath the head, purplish-red at base; sterile shoots elongated; leaves with well-developed blades 8-15 to a fertile culm, strongly septate-nodulose, the lower clustered, the upper scattered and exposing the internodes, the blades erect-ascending, flat, light-green, thin but firm, usually 1-3 dm. long, 4.5-14 mm. wide, averaging 7-10 mm., the upper half very rough on the margins, the sheaths rather loose, whitish-hyaline ventrally, concave and purplishbrown at mouth, the ligule about as long as wide or shorter; staminate spike solitary, usually with a bract, shortto long-peduncled, narrowly linear, 1-4 cm. long, 2 mm. wide, the peduncle rough, the scales from oblong-obovate and obtuse to lanceolate and acuminate, light-yellowishred with green center and hyaline margins; pistillate spikes 1 or 2, aggregated, erect, on peduncles about as long as the spikes to nearly sessile, globose or subglobose, 2-4 cm. long and as wide, the perigynia 6-30 (usually 15-20), spreading in all directions; bracts leaf -like, much exceeding the culm, sheathless or short-sheathing, the sheath not prolonged upward at mouth beyond the base of blade; scales broadly ovate, 3-nerved, obtuse to slightly cuspidate, whitehyaline with green center, narrower than and from one fourth to one half as long as the perigynia and usually completely concealed by the ripening perigynia ; perigynia ovoid-lanceolate, 12-18 mm. long, 6-7 mm. wide, suborbicular in cross-section, strongly inflated, usually more or less hispidulous, dull-green, subcoriaceous, strongly about 15-ribbed, cuneate at base and broadly stipitate, tapering into a serrulate or smooth, broad, conic, bidentate beak 1.5-2.5 mm. long, about one fifth the length of the whole, the teeth stiff, 1-2 mm. long, hispid within, erect or more or less spreading; achenes obovoid, 4—6 mm. long, 3-4 mm. wide, triangular with blunt angles and the sides concave below, very loosely enveloped, yellowish-white, sessile, abruptly conic-apiculate-tipped and continuous with the slender, normally straight, pe sistent style; stigmas 3, blackish, slender, short.
Type locality: "Hab. Ad ripas fluminum 'Mohawk' et 'Wood Creek,' Nov. Ebor. Occident, detexit cl. A. Gray, M.D."
Distribution: Rich alluvial woods in calcareous districts, Vermont and southwestern Quebec to Wisconsin, and southward to Georgia, Tennessee, and Missouri. (Specimens examined from Quebec, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Tennessee, Georgia.)