Long's Sedge

Carex longii is introduced in the Hawaiian Islands and New Zealand.

Several regional floras have incorrectly applied the name Carex albolutescens to C. longii (P. E. Rothrock 1991). In the southern part of the range, decumbent culms of C. longii can root at their nodes during the fall and produce flowering culms the following spring. A similar habit of vegetative spread is frequent in C. tribuloides, less common in C. albolutescens, C. ozarkana, and C. projecta, and rare in C. cristatella, C. scoparia and C. vexans.

P. E. Rothrock et al. (1997) reported putative hybrids between Carex longii and C. straminea.

Plants densely cespitose. Culms 30–120(–140) cm; vegetative culms with few leaves clustered at apex. Leaves: sheaths adaxially conspicuously green-veined nearly to collar, with a narrow hyaline band or sharp Y-shaped hyaline region at collar; adaxially firm, summits U-shaped, finely papillose; distal ligules 1.8–4.4(–6) mm; blades 2–4(–6) per fertile culm, 8–30 cm × 2–4.5 mm. Inflorescences ± erect, usually open, green to brown, 1–4.5(–6) cm × 5–14 mm; proximal internode 1–14 mm; 2d internode 3–8 mm; proximal bracts scalelike, often with bristle tips. Spikes 3–10, distinct, ellipsoid to ovoid, 6–13(–17) × 3.8–7 mm, base rounded or obtuse, apex obtuse to broadly acute; staminate portion 2 mm or less. Pistillate scales white-hyaline, becoming pale silvery brown with age, with pale or green center, broadly lanceolate, 2.2–3.7 mm, shorter and narrower than perigynia, apex obtuse. Perigynia appressed-ascending, green to drab brown, conspicuously 5–many-veined on each face, obovate, flat except over achene, 3–4.6 × 1.6–2.6(–2.8) mm, 0.4–0.5 mm thick, margin flat, including wing 0.5–0.8 mm wide; beak green to brown at tip, flat, broadly triangular, ciliate-serrulate, abaxial suture with conspicuous white hyaline margin, distance from beak tip to achene 1.4–2.2 mm. Achenes oblong, 1.3–1.7 × 0.7–1 mm, 0.4–0.5 mm thick, apiculum less than 0.4 mm; style straight. 2n = 58, 62.

N.S., Ont.; Ala., Ark., Conn., Del., D.C., Fla., Ga., Ill., Ind., Ky., La., Maine, Md., Mass., Mich., Miss., Mo., N.J., N.Y., N.C., Ohio, Okla., Pa., R.I., S.C., Tenn., Tex., Vt., Va., Wis., W.Va.; Mexico; West Indies (Haiti); Bermuda; Central America; South America; introduced Pacific Islands (Hawaii); New Zealand.

Fruiting early–mid summer (fall in southern part of range).

Wet or seasonally wet, sandy soils, fields, thickets, ditches, pond edges, open woods, occasionally bogs; 0–800m.

Carex longii Mackenzie, Bull. Torrey Club 49: 372. 192^
"Carex foenea Wind." Ell. Bot. S. C. & Ga. 2: 533. 1824.
"Carex leporina L." Schlecht. & Cham. Linnaea 6: 29. 1831.
-Carex slraminea var. foenea Torr. Ann. Lye. N. Y. 3: 395. 1836. (As to plant described: not as to
type.) Carex slraminea var. intermedia Gay. Ann. Sci. Nat. II. 10: 364, in very small part. 1838. Carex leporina var. bracteata Liebm. Danske Selsk. Skr. V. 2: 264. 185/. (Type from Vera Cruz,
Mexico.) Carex tagopotlioidrs var. composita Olney, Caric. Bor.-Am. 3, 4. 1871. (Based on " C. foenea"
of Elliott and Schw. & Torr.) Carex slraminea var. chlorostachys Bock. Linnaea 39: 118. 1875. (Type from New Orleans,
Louisiana.) "Carex albolulesuns Schw." L. H. Bailey, Bull. Torrey Club 20: 422. 1893.
Very densely cespitose, the rootstocks very short-prolonged, blackish, fibrillosc, the culms 3-8 dm. high, sharply triangular, slightly roughened on the angles beneatli the head, slender to base but stiff, exceeding the leaves, light-brownish-tinged at base and conspicuously clothed with the dried-up leaves of the previous year, the lowest bladeless; leaves of the year with well-developed blades 2-4 to a fertile culm, on the lower half but not bunched, the blades ascending, light-green, thickish, 1-2.5 dm. long, 2-4 mm. wide, roughened towards thl and on the margins, the sheaths rather tight, green-striate ventrally nearly to mouth, shortprolonged beyond base of blade and continuous with ligule; sterile culms with leaf blades usually 2.5-3 mm. wide; inflorescence consisting of 3-10 gynaecandrous, silvery-green or silvery-brownish spikes, aggregat .hat separate) into an erect, strict, ovoid to
oblong-linear head 2-4 cm. long, 5-12 mm. thick, the spikes ovoid, 6-12 mm. long, 4 <> mm •ride, round-tapering at base, obtu oi obtuse-tapering at apex, the basal staminate 9i
ilea sometimes rather conspicuous, i ipecially in the usually clavat tei minal spike), the perigynia numerous, appressed-ascendin I io( preading; one
or two of the lower bracts present, snort ani taceo thi others not developed
itish, silvery-hyaline with irtH and much nar-
row, r than tip perigynia; perigynia vr Bat piano-Convex, 1 *.5 mm, long, 2 nun
membranao reen or at maturity light brownish green, the body broadly ob
brongly winged neari) b lati to below middle, distended ovei the
achene, f.nntlv to strongl reralto many-nerved on both ii oded at base, abruptly contracted into a beak about 0.5 mm. long and one third to one fourth the length of the body, short, flat, serrulate, obliquely cut dorsally, at length bidentulate; achenes lenticular, oblong-obovoid, 1.5 mm. long, 0.75 mm. wide, short-apiculate, yellowishbrown, substipitate; style slender, jointed with achene, at length deciduous; stigmas two, slender, light-reddish, short.
Type locality: Cold Spring, Cape May County, New Jersey (B. Long, July 24, 1907).
Distribution: Wet acid soils, mostly near the coast. Massachusetts to Venezuela; northwestern Indiana; also in Bermuda. (Specimens examined from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania. Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Mexico, northwestern Indiana, Guatemala, Bermuda.)

Carex longii, or Long's sedge, is a species of sedge found in North America that was first described by Kenneth Mackenzie in 1922.