Spruce Muskeg Sedge

Carex lugens Holm, Am. Jour. Sci. IV 10: 269; 268./. A-D. 1900.
Carex aperta var. angustifolia Boott, in Hook. Fl. Bor. Am. 2: 218. 1839. (Type from Ft. Good Hope, Mackenzie.)
Carex caespitosa var. filifolia Boott, 111. Carex 182. 1867. (As to reference to C. aperta var. angustifolia Boott.)
Carex nudata var. angustifolia L. H. Bailey, Mem. Torrey Club 1: 16 (excluding Oregon plants). 1889. (Based on C. aperta var. angustifolia Boott.)
Carex yukonensis Britton; Britton & Rydb. Bull. N. Y. Bot. Gard. 2: 159. 1901. (T%-pe from Yukon.)
Carex consimilis Holm, Am. Jour. Sci. IV. 17: 310. 1904. (Type from Yukon.)
Carex cyclocarpa Holm, Am. Jour. Sci. IV. 17: 310. 1904. (Type from Yukon.)
Carex nudata var. versuta Piper, Contr. U. S. Nat. Herb. 11: 171. 1906. (Based on C. aperta var. angustifolia Boott.) Very densely cespitose, the rootstocks stout, descending obliquely, scaly, yellowish-brown, not sending out long horizontal stolons, the culms 2-4 dm. high, slender to base but strict, sharply triangular with slightly concave sides, roughened above, papillate, shorter or longer than the leaves, yellowish-brown, the sheaths purplish-edged at base, phyllopodic, the driedup basal leaves of the previous year long and conspicuous, the lower leaves of the flowering year much reduced; sterile shoots phyllopodic; leaves with well-developed blades 5-10 to a fertile culm, clustered near the base, the blades erect, thin, light-green, strongly channeled, usually 1-2 dm. long, 1-2 mm. wide, the margins strongly revolute, long-attenuate, serrulate to base, very rough towards apex, the sheaths smooth dorsally, the lower sharply keeled, very thin and hyaline ventrally and breaking but scarcely becoming filamentose, the ligule 2-3 times longer than wide; staminate spike solitary, short-peduncled, linear, 2.5 cm. long, 2.5-3.5 mm. wide, the scales oblong-obovate, very obtuse, purplish-black with lighter midvein not reaching to apex, and minutely hyaline apex; pistillate spikes 2 or 3, approximate or more or less separate, erect, sessile (the upper) to slender-peduncled (the lower), narrowly linear to oblong-linear, 0.8-2.5 cm. long, 2.5-6 mm. wide, closely flowered above, the lower often attenuate at base, often staminate at apex, the perigynia 10-30, appressed in few to several rows; lowest bract short, 0.5-3 cm. long, much shorter than culm, sheathless but conspicuously black-auricled at base; upper bracts usually reduced to the auricles; scales oblong-ovate, oblong-oval, or lanceolate, obtuse or acutish, narrower than and longer or shorter than the perigynia, black with inconspicuous or nearly obsolete lighter midrib not extending to apex, and very narrow hyaline margins; perigynia turgidly plano-convex, broadly ovate to suborbicular, 1.5-2.5 mm. long, 1.5-2 mm. wide, very prominently 2-ribbed (the marginal), otherwise nerveless, straw-colored below, or light-green when young, purplish-black-tinged above, membranaceous, puncticulate, granular, truncate or rounded at base and short-stipitate, round-truncate at apex, abruptly minutely apiculate, the beak 0.1-0.2 mm. long, entire, purplish-black; achenes lenticular, nearly filling perigynium, nearly as wide as long, truncate to short-tapering at base, sessile or nearly so, truncate at apex and abruptly short-apiculate, jointed with the short, straight, conspicuously protruding style; stigmas 2, slender, rather short.
Type locality: Kussiloff, Alaska (Evans).
Distribution: Swampy places, Mackenzie, Yukon, and Alaska. (Specimens examined from Mackenzie, Yukon, Alaska.)