Carex atlantica subsp. atlantica

Carex incomperta Bickn. Bull. Torrey Club 35: 494. 1908
Care* slerilis Willd. Sp. PI. 4: 208. in part, not as to tvpe. 1S05.
"Carex slerilis Willd." Schkuhr, Riedgr. Nachtr. pi. MMM.f. 146, in part. 1806.
Carex slerilis var. d Muhl. Descr. Gram. 217. 1817.
••Carex stellulala Gooden." Torr. Fl. N. Y. 2: 380. 1843.
Carex slerilis var. /i Boott, 111. Carex 1: 56. pi. 146*. 1858. (Type from Penn Yan, N. Y.)
Carex slerilis var. excelsior L. H. Bailey, Bull. Torrey Club 20: 424. 1893. (Type from Penn
Yan, N. Y.) Carex echinata var. excelsior Fernald, Proc. Am. Acad. 37: 484. 1902. (Technically based on
C. slerilis var. excelsior L. H. Bailey.) Carex stellulala var. excelsior Fernald, Rhodora 4: 222. 1902. (Technically based on C. slerilis
var. excelsior L. H. Bailey.) Carex stellulala var. slerilis f. excelsior "L. H. Bailey" Kiikenth. in Engler, Ptlanzenreich 4 20 : 231.
1909. (Based on C. slerilis var. excelsior L. H. Bailey.)
Densely cespitose, the rootstock not at all prolonged, the clumps large, the culms usually 2.5-6 dm. high, slender (1.5-2.5 mm. thick) to base, wiry, erect, sharply triangular, roughened above, from shorter to longer than the leaves, light-brownish at base, and conspicuously clothed with the dried-up leaves of the previous year, the lower bladeless; leaves with well-developed blades usually 3 or 4 to a fertile culm, on the lower third, but not bunched, the blades erectascending, thin, deep-green, flat or canaliculate, usually 5-20 cm. long, 1.5-2 mm. wide, or occasionally up to 2.5 mm. wide, roughened on the margins and towards the apex, the sheaths tight, hyaline ventrally, slightly thickened and reddish-brown-tinged and truncate at mouth, the ligule wider than long; spikes 3 or 4, approximate, or somewhat separate in a strict terminal head 1-3 cm. long, the spikes 4-5 mm. wide, containing 6-15 spreading or retrorse perigynia. the terminal spike 6-10 mm. long, clavate and staminate at base, the lower 4-6 mm. long, usually not staminate at base; bracts scale-like or the lowest occasionally short-prolonged; scales ovate, acutish to short-cuspidate, yellowish-brown, shading into the dull-white-hyaline margin, sharply keeled to apex by the conspicuous green midrib, narrower than and from two thirds to nearly length of bodies of perigynia; staminate scales longer, more acute; perigynia unequally slightly biconvex, suborbicular or broadly ovate-orbicular, 3 mm. long, 2 mm. wide, broadest just above base, deep-green, or brownish-green in age, sharp-edged, thick, firm, strongly many-nerved on both sides, the lower half spongy, short-stipitate, round-truncate at base, abruptly narrowed into a beak one half to one third the length of the body, bidentate, the teeth prominent, sharp, erect, the dorsal suture and false ventral suture conspicuous, somewhat reddish-tinged, extending more than half way down the beak, the serrulations of the margins extending a short distance down the body ; achenes lenticular, broadly ovate. 1.5 mm. long, 1.25 mm. wide, occupying upper part of perigynia, shortstipitate, slightly apiculate; style short, slightly enlarged at base, jointed with achene, at length deciduous; stigmas two, light-reddish-brown, slender, rather short.
Type locality: Wet bog below the Sea Cliff Inn, Nantucket Island, Massachusetts (Bicknell).
Distribution: Acid soils, swampy woods. Florida to Texas, and northward to Indiana, Michigan, central .New York, and Massachusetts. (Specimens examined from Massachusetts, Rhode Island. Connecticut. New York. New Jersey. Pennsylvania. Delaware, Maryland, District of Columbia, Michigan. Ohio. Indiana. Virginia. North Carolina. South Carolina. Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia. Alabama. Florida. Mississippi, Louisiana. Texas.)