Peter W. Ball

Plants loosely cespitose, short-rhizomatous. Culms red-brown at base. Leaves: basal sheaths not fibrous; sheath fronts membranous; blades M-shaped in cross section when young, adaxial surface with 2 lateral veins more prominent than midvein, pilose. Inflorescences racemose, with 2–5 spikes; proximal bracts sheathless or sheath less than 4 mm; lateral spikes pistillate, subsessile or short-pedunculate not more than 1 cm, prophyllate; terminal spikes staminate. Proximal pistillate scales with apex awned, glabrous. Perigynia ascending, veinless except for 2 strong marginal veins, stipitate, ellipsoid-obovoid, trigonous in cross section, less than 10 mm, base rounded, apex abruptly contracted to beak, pilose; beak 0.7–1.5 mm, bidentate, teeth less than 0.8 mm. Stigmas 3. Achenes trigonous, nearly as large as bodies of perigynia; style deciduous.

Species 1: temperate e North America.

Carex sect. Hirtifoliae was included by K. K. Mackenzie (1931–1935, parts 2–3, pp. 215–219) in C. sect. Triquetrae; it is easily distinguished from that section morphologically, and it is also ecologically and geographically anomalous in that section. Its relationships are unclear, but it is similar to C. sect. Hymenochlaenae in many respects.

Lower Taxon

• Carex hirtifolia Mackenzie