Estuary Sedge

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.)