Aquatic and Wetland Vascular Plants of the Northern Great Plains
62. Cyperaceae, the Sedge Family
2. Carex L. -- Sedge47. Carex simulata Mack.
Culms arising singly or few together from slender, brown rhizomes with fibrillose scales, (1)3-6(9) dm tall, light brown at the base, sharply trigonous, roughened above, usually surpassing the leaves. Leaves 2-5 per culm, 1-4 mm wide, flat or nearly so; sheaths tight, hyaline ventrally. Spikes all staminate or all pistillate or bisexual and androgynous, 5-15 crowded in an ovoid to oblong head 1-3 cm long; bracts inconspicuous and like the scales; pistillate scales brown with hyaline margins and a pale midvein, ovate-triangular, cuspidate, wider and longer than the perigynia and concealing them. Perigynia yellowish-brown to brown, shiny, unequally biconvex, broadly ovate, 1.7-2.8 mm long, ca. 1.5 mm wide, nerveless or weakly nerved on the dorsal side, nerveless or with a few short nerves ventrally, firm-textured and closely enveloping the achene, winged and serrulate on the margins above, abruptly narrowed to a short beak which is 1/5 to 1/3 the length of the body (0.2-0.5 mm long); achenes lenticular, 1.2-1.5 mm long; stigmas 2. Jun--Jul. Wet meadows and swamps; rare, with one record from McHenry Co., ND; (Sask. and n ND to WA, s to NM, UT and CA).
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