Short Stalk Sedge

The name Carex microchaeta has been misapplied to specimens of C. podocarpa. Within sect. Scitae, C. podocarpa is the only species having all the lateral spikes pendent and long-pedunculate.

Culms 5–60 cm. Leaves basal and cauline; proximal leaves reduced to sheaths; distal leaves with blades 3–6 mm wide. Inflorescences: spikes separate, elongate, 6–20 × 5–8 mm; lateral spikes 1–3, pendent, long-pedunculate. Pistillate scales dark brown or black, margins occasionally narrowly hyaline, midvein seldom prominent, same color as the body, inconspicuous, broadly lanceolate, shorter than or equaling and as wide as perigynia, apex acute. Perigynia brown or purple-brown, veinless, ovate, 3–3.5 × 1.75–2 mm, papillose; beak 0.3–0.4 mm, shallowly bidentate or truncate, sparsely papillose or smooth.

Alta., B.C., N.W.T., Yukon; Alaska, Idaho, Mont., Oreg.; Asia (Russian Far East).

Fruiting Jun–Aug.

Subalpine and alpine meadows, arctic tundra; 10–1800m.

Carex behringensis C. B. Clarke; C. montanensis L. H. Bailey; C. venustula T. Holm

Carex podocarpa R. Br.; Richards, in Frankl. Journey 751. 1824
Carex Tolmiei Boott, in Hook. Fl. Bor. Am. 2: 224. 1839. (Type from Columbia River.) Carex microchaeta Holm, Am. Jour. Sci. IV. 17: 305. 1904. (Type from Indian Divide, Yukon.) Carex Paysonis Clokey, Am. Jour. Sci. V. 3: 89. 1922. (Type from Jackson's Hole, Wyoming.)
Very loosely cespitose in medium-sized or small clumps, the rootstocks long, scaly, fibrillose, tough but rather slender, branching, the culms 1.5-5 dm. high, stiff, erect, sharply triangular, smooth or a little roughened above, papillose, much exceeding the leaves, brownishtinged and fibrillose at base, arising from the center of the dried-up leaves of the previous year, the lower culm-leaves little reduced; sterile shoots aphyllopodic; leaves with well-developed blades 8-15 to a fertile culm, clustered near the base, the blades flat with revolute margins, 3-25 cm. long, 2.5-5 mm. wide, light-green, firm, papillose, short-tapering, somewhat roughened towards the apex, the sheaths short, fragile and yellowish-brown-tinged ventrally, shortprolonged at mouth beyond base of blade, the ligule wider than long; sterile shoots with similar blades; staminate spikes 1 or 2, short-peduncled, oblong-clavate, 1.5-3 cm. long, 3-4.5 mm. wide, the scales oblong-oblanceolate to oblong-obovate, purplish-black with conspicuous, thick, light-colored midrib more or less exserted as a short cusp; pistillate spikes 2-6, more or less strongly separate, erect, the upper sessile or nearly so, the lower on slender peduncles somewhat shorter than the spikes, the spikes short-oblong to oblong-cylindric, rounded or slightly attenuate at base, 0.7-2.5 cm. long, 4-6 mm. wide, densely flowered, the 15-40 perigynia appressed-ascending in several rows; bracts sheathless, dark-auriculate, the lower 1 or 2 leaflet-like, shorter than the inflorescence, the upper much reduced; scales ovate or ovatelanceolate, slightly narrower and from slightly longer to slightly shorter than the perigynia, purplish-black with minutely hyaline margins and conspicuous, thick, whitish midvein usually prominent to apex, varying to nearly obsolete, more or less excurrent as a very short cusp, sometimes merely obtuse or acute; perigynia ovate, much flattened, 2-4 mm. long, 1.51.75 mm. wide, 2-ribbed (the marginal), faintly several-nerved, membranaceous, papillose, light-green, strongly purplish-blotched, rounded and sessile at base, round-tapering at apex, minutely abruptly beaked, the beak 0.2 mm. long, bidentulate, purple-tipped; achenes oblongobovoid, 1.75 mm. long, 1 mm. wide, loosely enveloped in lower half or two thirds of perigynium, triangular, light-brown, puncticulate, short-stipitate, apiculate, jointed with the straight, slender style; stigmas 3, reddish-brown, slender, short.
Type locality: Lat. 64°-69° northwestern Canada.
Distribution: Mountain meadows, Yukon to Oregon and Wyoming. (Specimens examined from Yukon, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming.)

Carex montanensis L> H. Bailey, Bot. Gaz. 17: 152. 1892
" Carex full ginosa Schkuhr" Seem. Bot. Voy. Herald 42. 1852.
Carex venustula Holm, Am. Jour. Sci. IV. 17: 304. 1904. (Type from Cook Inlet, Alaska.)
"Carex podocarpa R. Br." Kiikenth. in Engler, Pflanzenreich 4 2 »: 411. 1909.
Loosely cespitose, the rootstocks more or less elongate, slender, brownish, the new shoots at the base of the old, the culms 1-5 dm. high, central, rather slender to base, stiff below, more or less nodding above, bluntly triangular, obscurely papillose, exceeding the leaves, little to strongly roughened above, reddish-purple-tinged and somewhat fibrillose, strongly aphyllopodic; sterile shoots elongate, aphyllopodic; leaves with well-developed blades usually 2-4 to a fertile culm, the upper much the longer, widely separate on lower third, not at all clustered, the blades erect, deep-green, thin but firm, flat, usually 0.5-1.5 dm. long (or up to 2.5 dm. on sterile shoots), 2-4 mm. wide, short-tapering, roughened towards apex, the sheaths rounded and smooth dorsally, reddish-brown-tinged ventrally, not at all filamentose, the lower sheaths long and conspicuous, the ligule conspicuous, much longer than wide; staminate spike solitary (or with an additional small sessile one at its base), erect, oblong or oblong-obovoid, slenderpeduncled, 0.7-2.5 cm. long, 3-5 mm. wide, the scales oblong-obovate, obtuse, black, the lighter midrib inconspicuous, usually not extending to apex, the margins not hyaline ; pistillate spikes 2 or 3, rarely 4, occasionally slightly staminate at apex, approximate or a little separate, drooping or weakly erect on slender, smooth peduncles from somewhat shorter than to twice the length of the spikes, the spikes oblong to linear-oblong, 1-2 cm. long, 4-6 mm. wide, closely flowered, the perigynia 15-30, appressed-ascending in several rows; bracts squamiform, sheathless, black-auricled, usually much shorter than culm; scales oblong-obovate, obtuse to acute, mudh shorter than to about length of but much narrower than perigynia, thin, closely appressed, black, the margins not hyaline, the midvein obsolete, or rarely with somewhat lighter midvein not extending to apex; perigynia oblong-ovate or elliptical, much flattened, 4 mm. long, 2 mm. wide, 2-ribbed (the marginal), otherwise nerveless, very membranaceous, granular, strawcolored at base, strongly blackish-tinged above, rounded at base, substipitate, round-tapering at apex and abruptly minutely beaked, the beak 0.25 mm. long, black, entire or becoming bidentulate ; achenes triangular with concave sides, obovoid, one third to one fourth the width and about half the length of perigynium, minute, 1.5 mm. long, 0.75 mm. wide, slenderly long-stipitatc, brownish, apiculatc, jointed with the slender, straight, short-exserted style; stigmas 3, slender, rather long.
Type locality: "Montana, Upper Marais Pass, W. M. Canby, Aug. 2, 1883 (no. 350) and along subalpine streams, Park County, Frank Tweedy, Aug. 5, 1887. Also on mountain slopes, Kootanie Pass, Rocky Mountains of British America, John Macoun, Aug. 9, 1883."
Distribution: Meadows and along streams in the mountains, Alberta to southern Alaska, and southward to Montana and Idaho. (Specimens examined from Alberta, Montana, Idaho.)