Valley Sedge

Plants without conspicuous rhizomes. Culms 12–60 cm, 1–1.3 mm wide basally, 0.5–1 mm wide distally. Leaves: sheaths tight, green, fronts hyaline; ligules less than 2 mm, wider than long; widest leaf blades 1–3 mm wide, papillose adaxially. Inflorescences with 5–10 crowded spikes, 0.5–3 cm × 5–8 mm; proximal bracts to 1(–3) cm; spikes with 2–10 ascending perigynia. Pistillate scales hyaline or pale brown with green 1–3-veined center, ovate, 2.8–3.2 × 1.8–2.6 mm, body slightly shorter than to length of perigynium, apex acute to short-awned. Anthers 1.8–2.3 mm. Perigynia brown, abaxial face 7–15-veined proximally, otherwise veinless or obscurely veined, 3.3–4 × 1.8–2.3 mm, base of perigynium spongy, thickened and longitudinally striate adaxially, spongy region 0.7–1 mm, margins serrulate to subentire distally; beak 0.5–1 mm, apical teeth 0.1–0.3 mm. Stigmas straight or slightly twisted, 0.05 mm wide. Achenes ovate to circular, 1.6–2.7 × 1.5–2 mm.

B.C.; Ariz., Calif., Colo., Idaho, Mont., Nev., N.Mex., Oreg., S.Dak., Utah, Wash., Wyo.; Mexico (Hidalgo).

Fruiting spring–early summer.

Dry to mesic hillsides, grasslands, thickets, open forests; 500–3000m.

Carex rusbyi Mackenzie; C. vallicola var. rusbyi (Mackenzie) F. J. Hermann

Carex rusbyi Mackenzie, Smithson. Misc. Coll. 65^: 2. 1915
Densely cespitose, the culms strictly erect, 2.5-3.5 dm. high, sharply triangular, much exceeding the leaves, roughened above, dark-brown at base, the rootstocks very short-prolonged and dark-fibrillose; leaves with well-developed blades usually 3 or 4 to a culm, clustered near the base, the blades erect-ascending, light-green, flat, with somewhat revolute margins, 1-2 dm. long, 1.5-3 mm. wide, roughened on margins, the sheaths tight, not readily breaking, not septate-nodulose, the opaque part neither transversely rugulose nor red-dotted, but thin and truncate or concave at mouth, the ligule wider than long, not dark-margined; spikes about 5, all aggregated into a rather stiff head 1.5-2.5 cm. long and about 7.5 mm. thick, the upper spikes scarcely distinguishable, the lower readily distinguishable but little separated, each spike bearing the rather inconspicuous staminate flowers above and the 1-5 ascending perigynia below; bracts (except lowest) inconspicuous and resembling the scales, the lowest bract exceeding its spike, 1 cm. long, enlarged at base and terminating in a long cusp; scales ovate, white-hyaline, with conspicuous 1-3-nerved green center, faintly tinged with lightchestnut-brown, acuminate to awned, about the width of and rather shorter than the perigynia, these not completely concealed, but half enveloped at base; perigynia strongly plano-convex, narrowly ovate, 4 mm. long, about 1.75 mm. wide, with slightly raised borders, ventrally extending nearly to base and not serrulate, somewhat spongy at base, nerveless ventrally, obscurely mauy-striate dorsally, deep-green, submembranaceous, substipitate, round-tapering to the base, tapering to a minutely serrulate or nearly smooth beak about one third the length of the body, minutely hyaline-tipped, obliquely cut or in age very shallowly bidentate; achenes lenticular, with short-oblong face, 2.75 mm. long, 1.5 mm. wide; style slender, straight, not enlarged at base; stigmas two.
Type locality: Yavapai County, Arizona (Rusby 859).
Distribution: Dry soil, mountains of Arizona and New Mexico. (Specimens examined from Arizona, New Mexico.)

Carex vallicola Dewey, Am. Jour. vSci. II. 32: 40. 1861
Carex vagans Holm, Am. Jour. Sci. IV. 17: 301. 1904. (Type from Stein mountains, Oregon.) Carex phaeoUpis Holm, Am. Jour. Sci. IV. 17: 302. 1904. (Type from eastern Oregon.) Carex brevisqttama Mackenzie, Bull. Torrey Club 34: 152. 1907. (Type from Sweetwater County, Wyoming.)
Cespitose, from short-prolonged, tough but not thick, dark, fibrillose rootstocks, the culms erect, slender, sharply triangular, roughened on the angles immediately beneath the head, 2.5-6 dm. high, much exceeding the leaves, dark-brown-tinged at base; leaves with well developed blades about 3 to a culm, on lower fifth, the narrow blades erect or somewhat recTjrved, thin, light-green, 8-30 cm. long, 1 mm. wide, roughened on the margins and especially towards the long-attenuate apex, the sheaths tight, not septate-nodulose nor cross-rugulose, thin ventrally but not readily Ijreaking, truncate or concave and scarcely thickened at mouth, the ligule very short, broader than long; spikes closely aggregated in a dense terminal head 1.5-3 cm. long, 5-7 mm. thick, the individual spikes poorly defined and having from 2 or 3 to about 10 ascending or somewhat spreading perigynia at the base of the rather inconspicuous terminal staminate flowers, these forming a short cylinder; bracts absent or occasionally the lowest one present, S mm. long or less, awl-shaped, long-attenuate; scales broadly triangular, hyaline with the central portion brownish or straw-colored and 1-3-nerved, greenish, acute to short-cuspidate, noticeably exceeded by the perigynia; perigynia plano-convex, flat on the inner surface and margined except at base, oblong-elliptic, 3.5 mm. long, 2 mm. wide, deepgreen, submembranaceous, serrulate above middle, round-tapering at base, obscurely nerved dorsally, nerveless ventrally, more or less polished at maturity, rounded and abruptly narrowed into a short, minutely serrulate beak about 1 mm. long, obliquely cut and bidentulate, the teeth very short, reddish-tinged within; achenes lenticular, orbicular, short-apiculate, substipitate, 2 mm. long, 2 mm. wide; style short, slender, jointed with achene, scarcely enlarged at base; stigmas two, light-reddish-brown, slender, elongate.
Type locality: "Jackson's Hole on Snake River, June 18, 1860, 6000 ft. altitude. Dr. F. V. Hayden." [Southeastern Idaho.]
Distribution: Dry slopes. Black Hills of South Dakota to eastern Oregon and Nevada. (Specimens examined from South Dakota, Wyoming, Idaho. Oregon. Nevada.)

Carex vallicola is a species of sedge known by the common name valley sedge. It is native to western North America from British Columbia to New Mexico, where it grows in many types of moist and dry habitat, including forest and grassland. This sedge produces clumps of stems up to about 60 centimeters tall. The inflorescence is a crowded cluster of a few flower spikes. The fruit is enclosed in a brown perigynium.