Sturdy Sedge

Carex alma has an unusual combination of characteristics for the section. The conspicuous basal sheaths, the basally spongy perigynia tapering to beak, the hyaline acute scales, and the cylindricly enlarged style bases place the species closer to sect. Vulpinae than to other taxa of sect. Multiflorae. Carex agrostoides, here placed in synonymy with C. alma, has previously been distinguished by the green perigynia and absence of basal spongy tissue. All such specimens, including the type, appear to be immature specimens of C. alma in which spongy tissue and mature perigynium coloration have not developed.

Culms to 90 cm × 2 mm, scabrous. Leaves: sheath fronts spotted red-brown, veinless, plane, apex truncate to convex, membranous; ligule rounded, to 1 mm, free limb to 0.2 mm; blades to 75 cm × 6 mm, shorter than flowering stem. Inflorescences loosely paniculate, 4–12 cm × 15–20 mm, with 10–20 branches proximal branches distinct; the proximal internode to 25 mm; bracts scalelike, not conspicuous, the awn, when present, 15–50 mm. Scales hyaline, red-brown or pale brown, margins colorless, broad, shining, apex acute or mucronate. Anthers with prominent apiculus to 0.5 mm. Perigynia dark brown-black, 3–5-veined abaxially, 0–3-veined adaxially, body ovate to lanceolate, 3–4.5 × 1.5–2 mm, base rounded to cordate, conspicuous basal spongy tissue somewhat distending perigynium; beak 1–1.5 mm. Achenes red-brown, ovate, 1.2–1.5 × 1–1.2 mm, glossy; style base cylindric.

Ariz., Calif., Nev., N.Mex., Tex.; Mexico (Baja California, Sonora).

Fruiting Jul–Aug.

Stream banks, springs, seeps in desert regions; 600–2700m.

Carex agrostoides Mackenzie; C. vitrea T. Holm

Carex agrostoides Mackenzie, Bull. Torrey Club 34: 607. 1908
Densely cespitose, the rootstocks short, stout, blackish, fibrillose, the culms 4-8 dm. high, exceeding the leaves, slender but strict, sharply triangular, roughened on the angles, brownish-black at base and conspicuously clothed with the dried-up leaves of the previous year, the lower bladeless; leaves with well-developed blades 2-4 to a culm, usually 2-4 dm. long, very long-attenuate, 1-2 mm. wide, flat at base, strongly involute above, light-green, stiff, roughened towards the apex, the sheaths tight, conspicuously white-hyaline ventrally and sparingly red-dotted, truncate at mouth, the ligule wider than long; head decompound, 4-7 cm. long, 8-20 mm. thick, the lower one or two clustered, more or less separate, the upper closely aggregated; spikes very numerous, closely sessile, distinguishable with difficulty, oblong-ovoid, usually 2-5 mm. long, 1.5-2.5 mm. wide, androgynous or staminate at both ends, containing 1-10 appressed perigynia; bracts absent, or few and short (1.5 cm. long); scales oblong-ovate or lanceolate, obtusish to short-awned, greenish-straw-colored or light-brownish with 3-nerved green or in age whitish midrib and conspicuous hyaline margins, wider than but slightly exceeded by the mature perigynia; perigynia plano-convex, lanceolate-cuneate, 2.5-3.5 mm. long, scarcely 1 mm. wide, membranaceous, light-greenish, in age straw-colored, scarcely spongiose at base, margined to base, serrulate at base of beak, nerveless ventrally, obscurely few-nerved dorsally, minutely short-stipitate, round-tapering at base, tapering at apex into a beak as long as or longer than the body, with serrulate margins and white-tipped bidentate apex; achenes lenticular, narrowly oblong-ovoid, yellowishbrown, 1.5 mm. long, 0.5 mm. wide, truncately substipitate, tapering at apex and shortapiculate; style slender, straight, slightly enlarged at base, jointed with achene; stigmas two, light-reddish-brown, slender, long.
Type locality: Luna, northwest of Mogollon Mountains, Socorro County, New Mexico (Wooton. July 28, 1900. in herb. New Mexico Agricultural College).
Distribution : Arid regions, Arizona and New Mexico to Sonora. (Specimens examined from New Mexico, Arizona, Sonora.)

Carex alma is a species of sedge known by the common name sturdy sedge. It is native to the southwestern United States and northern Mexico, where it grows in moist spots in a number of habitat types. This sedge forms a thick clump of thin stems up to 90 centimeters in length and long, thready leaves. The leaves have basal sheaths with conspicuous red coloration, often spotting. The inflorescence is a dense to open cluster of many spikelets occurring both at the ends of stems and at nodes. Each cluster is up to 15 centimeters long and 1 to 2 wide. The plant is sometimes dioecious, with an individual sedge bearing either male or female flowers. The female, pistillate flowers have white or white-edged bracts. The male, staminate flowers have visible anthers 2 millimeters long or longer. The fruit is coated in a sac called a perigynium which is gold to dark brown in color and has a characteristic bit of spongy tissue at the base.