Aquatic and Wetland Vascular Plants of the Northern Great Plains
62. Cyperaceae, the Sedge Family
2. Carex L. -- Sedge13. Carex chordorrhiza Ehrh. ex L.f.
Culms arising singly or few together from the axils of dried leaves on older, reclining culms, the old, sterile culms elongate, smooth and wiry, fertile culms erect or nearly so, obtusely trigonous, 1-3 dm tall. Leaves 1-3 well-developed on each culm, the lower ones tending to be bladeless, blades 1-5 cm long on the fertile culms, to much longer on the sterile ones, 1-2 mm wide; sheaths hyaline ventrally. Spikes 3-8, bisexual, androgynous, ovoid, crowded in an oblong to ovoid head 5-15 mm long; bracts none; pistillate scales deep brown, ovate, acuminate, about equaling the perigynia. Perigynia brown, compressed-ovoid, 2-3.5 mm long, coriaceous, many-nerved on both faces, obscurely margined; beak short, emarginate; achenes lenticular; stigmas 2. Jun--Aug. Wet sphagnum bogs; rare, with a record from Bottineau Co., ND; (Circumboreal, in N.Amer. s to VT, NY, IN, n IA, n ND, Sask. and B.C.).
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