Aquatic and Wetland Vascular Plants of the Northern Great Plains

62. Cyperaceae, the Sedge Family

2. Carex L. -- Sedge

56. Carex viridula Michx.

Tufted; culms stiff, obscurely trigonous, 0.5-4 dm long, exceeding the leaves. Leaves 1-3 mm wide; sheaths thin, white-hyaline ventrally. Spikes unisexual or mostly so, the terminal one staminate or with a few perigynia at the tip or near the middle, 3-15 mm long, short-peduncled or sessile, surpassing the pistillate spikes or concealed among them; lateral spikes pistillate, 2-6, some often compound, ovoid to short-cylindric, 5-10 mm long, aggregate and sessile or nearly so above, the lower ones often remote and short-peduncled; bracts leaf-like, short-sheathing or sheathless, usually erect, much exceeding the heads; pistillate scales brownish on the sides, obtuse to cuspidate, about equaling the perigynia. Perigynia yellowish-green to brown, obtusely trigonous, obovoid, 2-3.6 mm long, 2-ribbed, with a few other conspicuous nerves, tapered or contracted to the slightly bidentate beak 0.5-1 mm long; achenes trigonous with concave sides, 1-1.2 mm long; stigmas 3. Jun--Jul. Calcareous wet meadows, fens, springs, seepage areas and boggy places; occasional from n ND and ne MT to n SD, rare in the Black Hills; (Newf. to AK, s to CT, IL, MN, SD and NM).


Carex viridula (from Hermann 1970).

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