Lisa A. Standley

Plant cespitose, stout-rhizomatous. Culms brown at base. Leaves: basal sheaths fibrous; sheath fronts membranous, proximal prominently veined and becoming ladder-fibrillose, not septate-noduloae; blades V-shaped in cross section when young, glabrous. Inflorescences racemose, with 6–11 spikes; proximal bracts leaflike, short-sheathing, shorter or longer than diameter of stem; proximal lateral spikes pistillate, pedunculate, prophyllate; distal lateral 2–4 spikes staminate; terminal spike staminate. Proximal pistillate scales with apex acute to awned. Perigynia ascending or spreading, yellow-brown to dark brown, obscurely veined on faces, sessile, broadly obovate, rounded-trigonous, base rounded, apex rounded, beaked, glabrous or hispidulous; beak flared, abaxially obliquely cut, to 5 mm, emarginate. Stigmas 3. Achenes trigonous, smaller than bodies of perigynia; style persistent.

Species 2 (1 in the flora): North America, Mexico.

Lower Taxon

• Carex spissa L. H. Bailey