Aquatic and Wetland Vascular Plants of the Northern Great Plains
62. Cyperaceae, the Sedge Family
2. Carex L. -- Sedge23. Carex gynocrates Wormskj. ex Drej.
Culms single or few together from long, very slender rhizomes, slender but stiff, 0.4-3 dm long, smooth, usually exceeding the leaves, brown and sheathed at the base by the previous year's leaves. Leaves clustered near the base, the blades narrowly involute and filiform, 0.4-0.9 mm wide. Spikes only 1 per culm, all staminate or all pistillate or bisexual and androgynous, 0.5-2 cm long, the staminate spike or portion linear-cylindric, the pistillate spike or portion short-cylindric; bract obsolete; pistillate scales brown or reddish, oblong-ovate, acute or acuminate, shorter than but wider than the perigynium. Perigynia 4-10, widely spreading or somewhat reflexed, yellowish to brownish-black and shiny, plump, oblong-ovate, 2.5-4 mm long, 1/2 as wide, spongy at the base, finely many-nerved dorsally, obscurely nerved ventrally, abruptly contracted to the beak; beak nearly entire to obliquely cut, 0.5 mm long; achene lenticular, 1.5 mm long; stigmas 2. Jun--Jul. Sphagnum bogs and wet, peaty soils; rare, with one record from McHenry Co., ND; (Greenl. to Yuk., s to Newf., PA, MI, MN, n ND, CO, UT and OR; also Siberia).
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