26cc. CAREX Linnaeus sect. GRANULARES (O. Lang) Mackenzie in N. L. Britton et al., N. Amer. Fl. 18: 260. 1935.
Theodore S. Cochrane & Robert F. C. Naczi
Carex [unranked] Granulares O. Lang, Linnaea 24: 582. 1851
Plants cespitose or not, short to long rhizomatous, sometimes inconspicuously rhizomatous. Culms sometimes solitary, brown at base. Leaves: basal sheaths not fibrous; sheath fronts membranous; blades M-shaped in cross section when young, adaxial side of blade with 2 lateral veins more prominent than midvein, widest leaves not more than 10 mm wide, glabrous. Inflorescences racemose, with (2–)3–6 spikes; proximal nonbasal bracts leaflike, long-sheathing, sheath more than 4 mm, longer than diameter of stem; lateral spikes pistillate or androgynous, rarely distal 1–3 spikes staminate, sometimes some basal, pedunculate, prophyllate; terminal spike staminate. Proximal pistillate scales with apex acute, acuminate, or short-awned. Perigynia ascending to spreading, minute red-brown or yellowish streaks and dots, distinctly veined, sessile, ellipsoid or rhomboid to broadly ovoid, obovoid, or subglobose, obscurely trigonous to round in cross section, base rounded, apex rounded, abruptly beaked, glabrous; beak 0.1–0.9 mm, orifice entire to minutely bidentulate, teeth 0–0.3 mm. Stigmas 3. Achenes trigonous, smaller than bodies of perigynia; style deciduous.
Species 6 (4 in the flora): temperate and subtropical regions of North America, s Mexico, Central America (Guatemala).
Carex sect. Granulares is a monophyletic section diagnosed by at least three apormorphies: red-brown or yellowish cells scattered in the epidermis of the perigynia, often 25 or more perigynia per well-developed lateral spike, and perigynia loosely enveloping the achenes (R. F. C. Naczi 1992, 1997). Recent phylogenetic analyses indicate section Granulares is the sister group of a clade composed of sections Careyanae and Griseae (R. F. C. Naczi 1992).
