Carex mainensis Porter; Britton, Man. 193. 1901
"Carex pull a Gooden." A. Gray, Man. ed. 5. 602. 1867.
Carex miliaris vars. Olney, Caric. Bor.-Am. 10, 13, nos. 17, 18. 1871.
Carex miliaris var. aurea L. H. Bailey, Mem. Torrey Club 1: 37. 1889. (Type from New Brunswick.)
" Carex Raeana Boott" Britt. & Brown, 111. Fl. 1 : 295. /. 682. 1896.
"Carex Grahami Boott" Fernald, Rhodora 3: 49. 1901. (As to North American plant.)
Carex miliaris X monile Britton, Man. 193. 1901. (As possible synonym, based on C. miliaris var. aurea L. H. Bailey.)
Carex saxalilis var. miliaris X vesicaria Rob. & Fern. Man. 255. 1908. (Based on C. miliaris var. aurea L. H. Bailey.)
Cespitose, from slender, tough, short-creeping rootstocks, not sending forth long horizontal stolons, the culms in small or medium-sized clumps, 3-8 dm. high, slender but wiry and erect, usually strongly exceeding but often shorter than the leaves, aphyllopodic, sharply triangular, roughened above, purplish-red-tinged at base, the basal sheaths breaking and becoming sparingly filamentose; sterile shoots elongate, the well-developed leaves clustered at the tip ; leaves with well-developed blades usually 4-6 to a fertile culm, on the lower half, not bunched, sparingly septate-nodulose, the blades flat with somewhat revolute margins or channeled towards the base, long-attenuate and more or less involute above, usually 1-2.5 dm. long, 1.5-3.5 mm. wide towards the base, much roughened especially towards the apex, the sheaths tight, hyaline and more or less yellowish-tinged ventrally, concave at mouth, the ligule much longer than wide ; staminate spike solitary (generally with an additional sessile one at its base), rough-peduncled, slender, narrowly linear, 1.5-3.5 cm. long, 2-3 mm. wide, the scales oblong-obovate, obtuse or acutish, yellowish-brown with lighter center and conspicuous white-hyaline margins; pistillate spikes 1-3, more or less strongly separate, erect or spreading, from nearly sessile to strongly slender-peduncled, the peduncles smooth, the spikes linearoblong, 1-3.5 cm. long, 6-8 mm. wide, closely flowered, containing 15-40 ascending or spreading-ascending perigynia in several rows; lower bract leaflet-like, erect or spreading, usually exceeding inflorescence, the upper reduced; scales ovate, lightor dark-purplish-brown with lighter center and slightly hyaline apex and upper margins, short-acute, narrower and considerably shorter than the mature perigynia; perigynia ovoid or oblong-ovoid, 3.5-5 mm. long, 2-2.5 mm. wide, little inflated, suborbicular or unequally biconvex in cross-section, glabrous, shining, puncticulate, yellowish-green or becoming straw-colored, the marginal nerves prominent, otherwise faintly nerved, rounded at base, substipitate, abruptly short-beaked, the beak 1 mm. long, slender, bidentate, the teeth short, 0.25 mm. long, purplish-tinged within; achenes obovoid, 2.5 mm. long, 1.75 mm. wide, triangular with blunt angles and sides concave below, largely filling perigynium-body but somewhat loosely enveloped, yellowish-brown, granular, nearly sessile, contracted into and continuous with the slender, persistent, twisted and very abruptly bent style ; stigmas 3, slender, short, blackish, achenes rarely lenticular and stigmas two.
Type locality: On lake and river shores, Maine to Labrador. Specimens from outlet of Moosehead Lake, Maine (E. E. and H. A. Smith) are taken as the type.
DISTRIBUTION: Lake and river shores, Labrador and Newfoundland to central Maine. (.Specimens examined from Labrador, Newfoundland, New Brunswick, Quebec, Maine.)