Carex tonsa var. rugosperma (Mack.) Crins

Carex rugosperma Mackenzie, Bull. Torrey Club
42: 621. 1915.
-Carex umbellala Schkuhr" Rob. & Fern. Man. 235. /. 444. 1908.
Densely cespitose, from stout, tough, very short rootstocks, the new shoots at the base of the old, the culms from very short to 20 cm. high, much exceeded by the leaves, sharply triangular, slender but stiff, rough on the angles, reddish-brown-tinged and strongly fibrillose at base, phyllopodic; sterile shoots aphyllopodic, erect, the sheaths sparingly filamentose; leaves numerous and conspicuous, the blades from very short to 20 cm. long, at flowering time 1.5-2 mm. wide, in age wider, very rough, thin but firm, erect, light-green, channeled towards base, flat above, the margins somewhat revolute, the sheaths smooth dorsally, little breaking or filamentose ventrally, the ligule much wider than long; terminal spike staminate, shortpeduncled, 3-12 mm. long, 1.5-2.5 mm. wide, the scales obovate, obtuse or acute, reddishbrown with lighter 3-nerved center and hyaline margins; pistillate spike usually present at base of staminate, sessile or short-peduncled, globose-oblong, 4-7 mm. long, 3.5 mm. wide, the basal spikes oblong, 4—10 mm. long, 3.5-4.5 mm. wide, densely flowered, the perigynia 4-20, ascending in several rows; bract of lowermost non-basal spike squamiform, shorter than culm, reddish-tinged at base; scales lance-ovate, cuspidate to acuminate, from slightly shorter to slightly longer and rather wider than the perigynia, but not concealing them, the basal hyaline with several -nerved green center, the upper tinged with reddish-brown; perigynia 3.25-4.25 mm. long, the body short-oval, triangular, orbicular in cross-section, about 1.75 mm. long and 1.25-1.5 mm. wide, short-pubescent above, membranaceous, dull-green, 2-keeled, otherwise nerveless, abruptly short-stipitate (the stipe 0.5 mm. long), abruptly contracted into a beak nearly the length of the body, the beak 2-edged, hyaline-tipped, bidentate; achenes triangular with convex sides and narrow, sharp angles, oblong-obovoid, filling body of perigynium, the outer covering duU-grayish-blackish, appearing minutely roughened, the superficial cells conspicuous, at complete maturity very obscurely irregularly pitted, nearly sessile, rounded at apex, and minutely apiculate, jointed with the slender style; stigmas three, slender.
Type locality': Tuckerton, New Jersey (Mackenzie).
Distribction: Dry sterile fields and dry, open woods, Nova Scotia to Minnesota, and southward to Maryland. (Specimens examined from Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, Quebec, Maine, New Hampshire. Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Ontario, Michigan, Minnesota.)