Aquatic and Wetland Vascular Plants of the Northern Great Plains
62. Cyperaceae, the Sedge Family
2. Carex L. -- Sedge26. Carex hookerana Dewey
Densely tufted from short rootstocks; culms slender, rather lax, trigonous, 1.5-6 dm long, exceeding the leaves. Leaves 1-2.5 mm wide; sheaths tight, white-hyaline and not cross-rugulose ventrally, green and not septate-nodulose dorsally. Spikes bisexual, androgynous, single at each node, usually less than 10, lower ones usually separate, in heads 1.5-5 cm long; bracts obsolete or much reduced and setaceous; pistillate scales green to reddish-brown with broad scarious margins, especially the lower ones awn-tipped, about as long and as wide as the perigynia. Perigynia hidden in the head by the scales, brownish, plano-convex, ovate-lanceolate, 2.7-3.5 mm long, membranous-thin and nerveless where distended over the achene, abruptly contracted into a bidentate, serrulate beak which is 1/4 to 1/3 the total length of the perigynium; achenes lenticular, 1.5-1.7 mm long; stigmas 2. Jun--Jul. Wet meadows, boggy places, moist woods and prairie; uncommon in n ND; (w Ont. to Alta., s to ND).
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