Buxbaum's Sedge

The plant reported by M. Raymond (1950) as Carex hartmanii Cajander is most likely this species (J. Cayouette, pers. comm.).

Plants cespitose, long-rhizomatous. Culms 25–75 cm, distally scabrous. Leaves 2–3.5 mm wide. Inflorescences: proximal bracts shorter than, equaling, or exceeding inflorescences; spikes separate, erect, short-pendunculate, short-oblong or elongate, 10–25 × 6–10 mm; lateral 2–3(–4) spikes pistillate; terminal spike gynecandrous. Pistillate scales light to dark brown, lanceolate, shorter or much longer and narrower than perigynia, midvein lighter colored than body, conspicuous, often raised, prominent, apex acute or acuminate, mucronate, mucro 0.5–3 mm. Perigynia ascending, gray green or whitish, faintly veined, elliptic, 2.5–4 × 1.5–2 mm, apex beakless or abruptly beaked, densely papillose; beak to 0.2 mm. Achenes nearly filling body of perigynia. 2n = ca. 106.

Greenland; Alta., B.C., Man., N.B, Nfld. and Labr., N.W.T., N.S., Ont., Que., Sask., Yukon; Alaska, Ark., Colo., Conn., Del., Idaho, Ill., Ind., Iowa, Kans., Maine, Md., Mass., Mich., Minn., Mo., Mont., Nebr., N.H., N.Y., N.C., N.Dak., Ohio, Oreg., Pa., R.I., S.C., S.Dak., Utah, Vt., Va., Wash., W.Va., Wis., Wyo.; Eurasia.

Fruiting May–Sep.

Wet meadows, marshes, fens; 20–3000m.

Carex buxbaumii var. anticostensis Raymond; C. polygama Schkuhr 1801, not J. F. Gmelin 1796; C. holmiana Mackenzie

Carex buxbaumii Wahl. Sv. Vet.-Akad. Nya Handl. 24: 163. 1803
Carex polygama Schkuhr, Riedgr. 84. pi. X, f. 76; pi. Gg, f. 76. 1801. (Type from northwestern
Europe.) Not C. polygama J. F. Gmel. 1791. Carex subulata Schum. Enum. PI. Saell. 1: 270. 1801. (Type from Denmark.) Not C. subidata
J. F. Gmel. 1791. Carex Buxbaumii var. alpicola Hartm. Scand. Fl. 41. 1820. (Type from Scandinavia.) Physiglochis Buxbaumii Raf. Good Book 27. 1840. (Based on Carex Buxbaumii Wahl.) Carex Buxbaumii var. macroslachya Hartm. Scand. Fl. ed. 5. 268. 1849. (Type from Scandinavia.) Carex Buxbaumii var. australis Anderss. Cyp. Scand. 39. 1849. (Type from Scandinavia.) Carex Buxbaumii var. heterostachya Anderss. Cyp. Scand. 39. 1849. (Type from Scandinavia.) Carex albo-atra Muhl.; Boott, 111. Carex 136, as synonym. 1867. "Carex fusca All." L. H. Bailey, Mem. Torrey Club 1 : 63. 1889. Carex Buxbaumii var. oenipontana Gremblich; Appel, Mitth. Bot. Ver. Thiir. 8: 43. 1895. (Type
from central Europe.) Carex Buxbaumii f. virescens Norman, Forh. Vid. Selsk. Christ. 27 16 : 50. 1893. (Type from Finmark.) Carex Buxbaumii f. milis Norman, Forh. Vid. Selsk. Christ. 27 16 : 50. 1893. (Type from Scandinavia.) Carex tarumensis Franch. Bull. Soc. Philom. VIII. 7: 37, 1895. (Type from Japan.) Carex picea Franch. Bull. Soc. Philom. VIII. 7: 39, 151. 1895. (Type from Japan.) Carex Buxbaumii f. macroslachya "Hartm." Kiikenth. in Engler, Pflanzenreich. 4 20 : 394. 1909.
(Based on C. Buxbaumii var. macroslachya Hartm.) Carex Buxbaumii f. oenipontana "Gremblich" Kiikenth. in Engler, Pflanzenreich 4 20 : 394. 1909.
(Based on C. Buxbaumii var. oenipontana Gremblich.) Carex Buxbaumii f. heterostachya "Anderss." Kiikenth. in Engler, Pflanzenreich 4 20 : 394. 1909.
(Based on C. Buxbaumii var. heterostachya Anderss.) Carex Holmiana Mackenzie, Bull. Torrey Club 36: 481. 1909. (Type from Montana.) Carex polygama var. heterostachya Farwell, Rep. Mich. Acad. 19: 254. 1917. (Based on C. Buxbaumii var. heterostachya Anderss.)
Loosely cespitose and stoloniferous, the stolons long, slender, horizontal, scaly, the culms 2.5-10 dm. high, erect, very slender, sharply triangular and rough above, papillose, aphyllopodic, strongly purplish-red-tinged at base, the basal sheaths breaking and conspicuously filamentose; sterile shoots phyllopodic; leaves with well-developed blades 2-4 to a fertile culm, on lower half, not clustered, the blades erect, light-green, more or less glaucous, thin, papillose, flat with revolute margins, channeled towards the base, sharply keeled, usually 1-2 dm. long, 1.5-4 mm. wide, long-attenuate, rough on margins and towards apex, the sheaths thin, yellowish-brown-tinged and purplish-dotted ventrally, the lower sharply keeled, the ligule longer than wide; spikes 2-5, approximate or the lower more or less separate, the terminal shortpeduncled, gynaecandrous, oblong-ovoid, 1-4 cm. long, 8-12 mm. wide, the basal staminate part short, the lateral pistillate, sessile or nearly so, ovoid or oblong-ovoid, 0.5-2 cm. long, 6-10 mm. wide, densely flowered, the 10-40 perigynia appressed-ascending in many rows; bracts sheathless, squamiform, dark-auricled, the lowest shorter than or equaling inflorescence, the upper much reduced; scales lanceolate, narrower than and usually longer but sometimes shorter than the perigynia, long-acuminate or aristate, varying to acute or even obtusish, purplish-black or purplish-brown with light midvein prominent to apex; perigynia elliptic or obovoid, triangular-biconvex, 2.5-4 mm. long, 1.5-2 mm. wide, glaucous-green, densely papillose, subcoriaceous, 2-ribbed (the marginal) and finely many-nerved, rounded and shortstipitate at base, rounded and abruptly very minutely beaked, the beak 0.2 mm. long, bidentulate, purplish-tipped; achenes suborbicular-obovoid, triangular with blunt angles, 1.75 mm. long, 1.5 mm. wide, nearly filling lower four fifths of perigynium body, brownish, strongly punctate, short-tapering at base, abruptly short-apiculate, jointed with the short. Blender style; stigmas 3, slender, reddish-brown, rather short.
Type locality: "Hub. in paludosis Sueciae, e. g. in Stormossan ad I ><■ ithammar el in Lapponia
unique."
Distribution: Sunny swamps or we1 meadows or springy p Llcareous regions, .New-

Carex buxbaumii is a species of sedge known as Buxbaum's sedge or club sedge. It is native to much of the northern Northern Hemisphere, from Alaska to Greenland to Eurasia, and including most of Canada and the United States. It grows in wet habitat, such as marshes and fens. This sedge grows in clumps from long rhizomes. The stems are 75–100 cm (30–39 in) in maximum height. The leaves are narrow and small. The inflorescence has a bract which is sometimes longer than the spikes. The fruits have dark-colored bracts and a sac called a perigynium or utricle which is gray-green and rough in texture.