Shortbeak Sedge

Carex brevior seems to display an unusually broad, aneuploid chromosome series that does not readily correlated with any features of external morphology (P. E. Rothrock and A. A. Reznicek 1998). The chromosome variation may, however, have a geographic relationship. Among the plants observed, the lowest number came from northeast Texas while the highest number (n = 34) came from Manitoba (Á. Löve and D. Löve 1981b).

Records of Carex brevior from ruderal habitats east and south of its main range are likely introductions.

Plants densely cespitose; rhizomes sometimes short-prolonged, appearing elongate in old clumps. Culms 15–120 cm; vegetative culms few, inconspicuous, usually fewer than 15 leaves, not strikingly 3-ranked. Leaves: sheaths adaxially white-hyaline, summits U-shaped or sometimes prolonged to 2 mm beyond collar and rounded, smooth; distal ligules 2.2–3.5 mm; blades 3–5 per fertile culm, 12–30 cm × 1.5–3.5 mm. Inflorescences open, brown, (1.3–)2.5–5(–6.5) cm × 5–18 mm; proximal internode (3–)6–13(–23) mm; 2d internode 2–12 mm; proximal bracts scalelike or bristlelike, shorter than inflorescences. Spikes (3–)4–7, 5–7 on larger culms, distant, distinct, ovoid to ellipsoid, 7–17(–24) × 4–8(–12) mm, base attenuate or rarely rounded, apex acute to rounded; terminal spike usually with conspicuous staminate base. Pistillate scales white-hyaline, tinged reddish brown, usually with whitish, pale gold, or green midstripe, broadly lanceolate to narrowly ovate, 2.6–4.3 mm, as long as to 0.7–0.9 mm shorter than perignyium beaks, narrower than perigynia, margins thin, sometimes involute, apex mostly acute. Perigynia (10–)15–40(–45) per spike, ascending-spreading, green or reddish brown, veinless or faintly and irregularly 1–5-veined adaxially, orbiculate or broadly ovate, plano-convex, (2.6–)3.4–4.8(–5.2) × (2–)2.3–3.2 mm, 0.5–0.6 mm thick, 1.2–1.8 times as long as wide, nearly leathery, margin flat, including wing 0.3–0.8 mm wide, ciliate-serrulate at least distally, smooth; beak pale green or brown at tip, flat, ± ciliate-serrulate, abaxial suture with gold or reddish brown-hyaline margin, distance from beak tip to achene 1.5–2.4 mm. Achenes orbiculate to broadly ovate, 1.5–2.2 × 1.3–1.8 mm, 0.5–0.6 mm thick. 2n = 48, 52, 56, 60, 64, 68.

Alta., B.C., Man., Ont., Que., Sask.; Ariz., Ark., Colo., Conn., Del., D.C., Ga., Idaho, Ill., Ind., Iowa, Kans., Ky., Maine, Mass., Mich., Minn., Miss., Mo., Mont., Nebr., N.H., N.J., N.Mex., N.Y., N.C., N.Dak., Ohio, Okla., Pa., R.I., S.Dak., Tenn., Tex., Vt., Va., Wash., W.Va., Wis., Wyo.; Mexico (Tamaulipas).

Fruiting early–mid summer.

Prairies, meadows, open woods, dry roadbanks, often in calcareous or neutral soils; 0–2700m.

Carex straminea Willdenow ex Schkuhr var. brevior Dewey, Amer. J. Sci. Arts 11: 158. 1826

Carex brevior (Dewey) Mackenzie; Lunell, Am. Midi. Nat 4: 235. N 1915; Bull. Torrey Club 42: 605. D 1915.
Carex slraminea Willd.; Schkuhr, Riedgr. Nachtr. 23, in part, not as to type. 1806.
Carex slraminea var. brevior Dewey, Am. Jour. Sci. 11: 158. 1826. (Type from western Massachusetts.)
Carex slraminea var. Schkuhrii Gay, Ann. Sci. Nat. II. 10: 363, in part, not as to type. 1838.
Carex slraminea var. lypica Boott, 111. Carex 121. pi. 387. 1862. (Type from Connecticut.)
"Carex slraminea Willd." L. H. Bailey. Proc. Am. Acad. 22: 149, in part. 1886.
Carex festucacea var. brevior Fernald, Proc. Am. Acad. 37: 477. pi. 3, f. 49-51. 1902. (Based on C. slraminea var. brevior Dewey.)
Cespitose, from short-prolonged, lignescent, black-fibrillose rootstocks, the culms 3-10 dm. high, slender but stiff, sharply triangular, exceeding the leaves, the angles varying from smooth to noticeably roughened under the head, clothed at base with the short-bladed leaves of the previous year, the lower bladeless; leaves with well-developed blades 3-6 to a culm, on the lower third, but not bunched, the blades erect-ascending, light-green, thickish, usually 1-2 dm. long, 1.5-4 mm. wide, strongly roughened towards apex especially on the margins, the sheaths tight, conspicuously white-hyaline ventrally, extending up beyond point of insertion of blade and continuous with ligule; sterile shoots conspicuous, the leaf-blades ascending, the developed leaves bunched at apex; spikes 3-10, from aggregated in a short strict head to separated in a moniliform inflorescence 1. 5-3 cm. long, 7-15 mm. thick, the gynaecandrous, subglobose or ovoid or oblong, 7-15 mm. long, 5-9 mm. wide, with 8-20 ascending-spreading perigynia above tinbeaks spteading-aso riding), blunt at apex, and from
abruptly rounded to gradually contract' I into * J i > ihoit'<r kfflg-claVBte basal star portion ; bract Cale-Hke, tinlowest often prolonged, I 1 cm. long, the upper nicrclv acuminate
or short awm-d; scales ovate, obti I acuminate, yellowish brown with
{-nerved green ''titer and narrow hyaline margins, shorter ami above noticeably narrower than the perigynia; perigynia plano-convex or slightly concavo-convez, broadly 01 suborbicular, usually 4-5.5 mm. long, 2.5-3.5 mm. wide, thick, firm, coriaceous, green above, greenish-white beneath, strongly winged to base, finely serrulate to below middle, truncate or rounded at base, strongly severalto many-nerved dorsally, nerveless to faintly (or rarely strongly) few-nerved towards base ventrally, abruptly narrowed into a beak about 1 mm. long and less than one third length of body, flat, finely serrulate, reddish-brown-tipped, obliquely cut dorsally, strongly bidentate, the margins of the orifice reddish-brown; achenes lenticular, orbicular, 1.75-2 mm. long, 1.5-1.75 mm. wide, substipitate, apiculate, yellowish-brown; style slender, straight, jointed with achene, at length deciduous; stigmas two, reddish-brown, slender, long.
Type locality (of C. siraminea var. brevior Dewey, on which C. brevior is based): "Grows with the other" (C straminea) in western Massachusetts, "also in Missouri."
Distribution: Open sunny places, in dry calcareous or neutral soils. Quebec and Maine to British Columbia, and southward to District of Columbia. Tennessee, Texas, New Mexico, and Oregon. One of our most widely distributed species; it avoids acid soils. (Specimens examined from Quebec. Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, District of Columbia, Ontario. Ohio, Michigan. Indiana, Tennessee, Wisconsin, Manitoba, Illinois, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas. Oklahoma. Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Montana, Wyoming. Colorado, New Mexico, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia.)

Carex brevior, known as shortbeak sedge and plains oval sedge, is a species of sedge native to North America. The specific epithet brevior means "shorter" in Latin.