Estuary Sedge

Carex recta is a common, stabilized hybrid or backcross between C. aquatilis and C. paleacea (J. Cayouette and P. Morisset 1985, 1986; L. A. Standley 1990), which does not occur outside of the common range of the two parents. Plants of the northernmost latitudes tend to have darker scales. Previous reports from Maine (mostly), New Hampshire, and Massachusetts of C. recta, C. salina, and C. salina var. cuspidata are based on plants of C. vacillans or hybrids of C. paleacea.

The voucher of the chromosome number report of 2n = ca. 70 (R. J. Moore and J. A. Calder 1964) for Carex recta from Prince Edward Island is C. paleacea × C. stricta. Backcrosses of C. recta with its parents, known as C. ×grantii Ar. Bennett, are frequent in Newfoundland and Labrador, northern Ontario, eastern to northwestern Quebec, and northwestern Europe. Reports from elsewhere were based on misidentifications of C. paleacea × C. recta. Other accepted hybrids of C. recta are crosses of C. recta with C. salina and C. subspathacea. A specimen intermediate between C. recta and C. stricta is known from northwestern Quebec. Other reports of C. recta hybrids are misidentifications: C. miliaris × C. recta (= C. ×nubens E. Lepage) and C. recta × C. aquatilis subsp. minor are C. aquatilis × C. recta; Carex nigra × C. recta (= C. ×super-goodenoughii (Kükenthal) E. Lepage) is C. vacillans.

Plants not cespitose. Culms obtusely or acutely angled, 25–80 cm, glabrous. Leaves: basal sheaths red-brown or brown; sheaths of proximal leaves smooth, fronts lacking spots and veins, apex U-shaped; blades usually amphistomic, 2.5–5 mm wide, papillose or glabrous. Inflorescences: peduncle of proximal spike 0.6–2 cm; proximal bract equal to or longer than inflorescence, 3–5 mm wide. Spikes erect or the proximal pendent; proximal 3–5 spikes pistillate, 3–5.5 cm × 2–6 mm, base cuneate or attenuate; terminal 1–3 staminate. Pistillate scales brown to reddish brown, 2.8–5.5 × 0.9–1.4 mm (including awn), narrower than perigynia, midvein reaching apex, 1/3–1/2 the width of the scale, apex acuminate, aristate, awn glabrous or scabrous. Perigynia ascending, pale brown, 0–4-veined on each face, somewhat inflated, loosely enclosing achenes, ellipsoid, 1.9–3.1 × 1.2–2 mm, dull, base with stipe to 0.3 mm, apex acute, short-papillose; beak slightly conic to cylindric, 0.2–0.3 × 0.2–0.3 mm, entire. Achenes strongly constricted on 1 face, sometimes on 1 margins, apex rounded to truncate, sometimes glossy; style base strongly bent, rarely straight. 2n = 73, 75, 76.

St. Pierre and Miquelon; Man., Nfld. and Labr., N.S., Ont., P.E.I., Que.; Maine, Mass., N.H.; Europe.

Fruiting Jul–Aug.

Saline, brackish shores, swales, intertidal marshes, river estuaries; 0–10m.

Carex kattegatensis Fries ex Lindman; C. salina Wahlenberg var. kattegatensis (Fries ex Lindmann) S. O. I. Almquist; C. × saxenii M. Raymond var. ferruginea E. Lepage

Carex recta Boott, in Hook. Fl. Bor. Am. 2: 220. pi. 222. 1839
Carex vacillans Drejer: Hartm. Excurs.-Fl. 131. 1846. (Type from Scandinavia.)
"Carex saUna Wahl." Hartm. Skand. Fl. ed. 5. 270. 1849. (From Oslo, Norway.)
Carex salinoides Beurl. Bot. Notiser 1853 : 35. 1853. (Based on " C. salina Wahl." Hartm.)
Carex kattegatensis Fries (Ind. Sem. Hort. Upsal. 1857: name only. 1857); Hartm. f. in Hartm.
Skand. Fl. ed. 8. 279, as synonym. 1861. Carex salina var. filipendula Blytt, Norges Fl. 219. 1861. (As to Norway plant only.) Carex salina var. haematolepis Blytt, Norges Fl. 219. 1861. (As to Norway plant only.) Carex salina var. elata Blytt, Norges Fl. 219, excl. syn. 1861. (Type from Norway.) Carex salina var. pallida Blytt, Norges Fl. 219. 1861. (Type from Norway.) Carex salina subsp. fuligine a Blytt, Norges Fl. 219. 1861. (Type from Norway.) " Carex salina Wahl." Boott, 111. Carex 160. pi. 525; pi. 526, f. 1; pi. 527. 1867. (Plants from Scandinavia and northeastern North America.) Carex salina var. caespitosa A. Blytt, Veg. Sognefj. 84. 1869. (Type from Norway.) Carex salina subsp. oblusa A. Blytt, Veg. Sognefj. 84. 1869. (Type from Norway.) Carex salina var. kattegatensis Almq. ; Hartm. f. in Hartm. Skand. Fl. ed. 11. 466. 1879. (Type from
Sweden.) " Carex salina var. cuspidata Wahl." L. H. Bailey, Mem. Torrey Club 1 : 46. 1889. (As to plant of
northeastern North America.) Carex salina subsp. cuspidata var. kattegatensis "Fries" Almq. Bot. Notiser 1891 : 126. 1891. (Based
by inference on C. salina var. kattegatensis Almq.) "Carex cuspidata Wahl." Britt. & Brown, 111. Fl. 1: 311. 1896. (Plant from northeastern North
America.) Not C. cuspidata Host, 1801. Carex stricta X salina Kiikenth. Oesterr. Bot. Zeits. 46: 206, in part. 1896. (As to plant from
Christiania [Oslo], Norway.) Carex salina var. kaltegatensis f. caespilosa "A. Blytt" Kukenth. in Engler, Pflanzenreich 4-°: 363.
1909. (Based on C. salina var. caespilosa A. Blytt.) Carex salina var. kattegatensis f. elala "Blytt" Kukenth. in Engler, Pflanzenreich 4 M : 363. 1909.
(Based on C. salina var. elala Blytt.) Carex salina var. kattegatensis f. pallida "Blytt" Kukenth. in Engler, Pflanzenreich 4 20 : 363. 1909.
(Based on C. salina var. pallida Blytt.) Carex salina var. kattegatensis f. obtusa "A. Blytt" Kukenth. in Engler, Pflanzenreich 4 20 : 363. 1909.
(Based on C. salina subsp. obtusa A. Blytt.) Carex salina var. pseudofilipendula Kukenth. in Engler, Pflanzenreich 4 :o : 363. 1909. (Based on
C. salina var. filipendula Blytt.)
Culms cespitose, the rootstocks sending forth very long, horizontal, rather slender or stoutish, yellowish-brown, fibrillose stolons, the culms 1.5-9 dm. high, erect, stout below, sharply triangular, smooth, shorter than or exceeding leaves, dull-brownish-red at base, phyllopodic, the dried-up leaves of the previous year conspicuous; sterile shoots aphyllopodic, their sheaths often breaking and becoming sparingly filamentose; leaves of the flowering year 4—6 to a fertile culm, on lower third, the blades flat, or the margins slightly revolute towards tip, thin, dull-green, 0.5-5 dm. long, 2.5-5 mm. wide, smooth except towards tip, the sheaths smooth, thin and whitish or yellowish-tinged ventrally, the ligule about as wide as long, or wider than long, strongly purplish-red-dotted; upper 1-3 spikes staminate, linear, 1-4 cm. long, 3-4.5 mm. wide, the terminal peduncled, the lateral sessile, the scales oblong-obovate, not keeled, blackish-purple with narrow white-hyaline margins and lighter center; pistillate spikes 1-4, the upper often staminate at apex, erect, more or less strongly separate, the low 7 er shortpeduncled, the upper sessile or nearly so (the peduncles smooth), cylindric, 1-8 cm. long, 4.5-10 mm. wide, densely flowered, the perigynia very many, appressed, in several to many rows; bracts sheathless, not at all spathaceous, the lower 1 or 2 leaf-like, exceeding culm, the upper reduced; scales ovate or oblong-ovate, much longer and mostly narrower than and not concealing perigynia, thin, flat or nearly so, not amplectant at base except at times in lowest, purplish-black with wide, 3-nerved, green center, the lower deeply emarginate at apex and rough-awned, the upper tapering into a short awn or often only acute or obtuse; perigynia broadly obovoid to suborbicular, 2.5 mm. long, 1.75 mm. wude, plano-convex, scarcely inflated, 2-ribbed (the marginal), otherwise nerveless or more or less strongly several-nerved, puncticulate, not granular, light-green, purple-dotted, subcoriaceous, rounded or roundtapering and substipitate at base, abruptly apiculate, the beak 0.3 mm. long, whitish, entire; achenes lenticular, loosely enveloped, filling three fourths of perigynium, deeply constricted in middle, brown, shining, oval-obovoid, 1.75 mm. long, 1.4 mm. wide, nearly sessile, very shortly apiculate, jointed with the rather short style; stigmas 2, slender, long.
Type locality: "Hab. Labrador. Herb. Hooker."
Distribution: Brackish marshes along the coast, Labrador south to Massachusetts and west to Alaska; also on the coasts of northern Europe. (Specimens examined from Labrador, Newfoundland, Miquelon, Hudson Bay, Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Alaska.)