Brown Fox Sedge

Carex vulpinoidea is widely distributed in North America and frequently grows as a weed in wet roadside ditches and fields. It is quite variable, particularly in the degree to which the spongy tissue lateral to the achene is developed. The development of that tissue determines the shape of the perigynium and the degree to which the perigynium appears to contract into the achene, as discussed by F. M. B. Boott (1858–1867). The flowering stems shorter than the leaves, the pale brown, elliptic perigynia, and the preference for moist substrates of C. vulpinoidea readily distinguish it from C. annectens.

Culms to 100 cm × 2 mm, scabrous. Leaves: sheath fronts spotted red-brown or pale brown, apex truncate or short-convex, membranous or hyaline, rugose; ligule retuse or rounded, to 2 mm, free limb to 0.2 mm; blades 120 cm × 5 mm, longer than flowering stem. Inflorescences spicate, (3–)7–10 cm × 15 mm, with 10–15 branches, the proximal branches distinctly separate; the proximal internode to 25 mm; bracts setaceous, those subtending at least the proximal lateral branches conspicuous. Scales pale brown, hyaline, awn to 3 mm. Perigynia green to pale brown, veinless on both faces or 3-veined abaxially, body ovate or elliptic, 2–3.2 × 1.3–1.8 mm, base obtuse; beak 0.8–1.2 mm, 1/3–1/2 length of perigynium. Achenes red-brown, ovate, 1.2–1.4 × 1 mm, glossy. 2n = 52.

St. Pierre and Miquelon; Alta., B.C., Man., N.B., Nfld. and Labr., N.S., Ont., P.E.I., Que., Sask.; Ala., Ariz., Ark., Calif., Colo., Conn., Del., D.C., Fla., Ga., Idaho, Ill., Ind., Iowa, Kans., Ky., La., Maine, Md., Mass., Mich., Minn., Miss., Mo., Nebr., N.H., N.J., N.Mex., N.Y., N.C., N.Dak., Ohio, Okla., Oreg., Pa., R.I., S.C., S.Dak., Tenn., Tex., Vt., Va., Wash., W.Va., Wis., Wyo.; Mexico (Sonora); introduced to Europe; New Zealand.

Fruiting Jul–Aug.

Seasonally saturated or inundated soils in open habitats, wet meadows, marshes, roadside ditches; 0–1800m.

Carex microsperma Wahlenberg; C. multiflora Willdenow; C. multiflora var. microsperma (Wahlenberg) Dewey; C. scabrior Dewey; C. setacea Dewey; C. vulpinoidea var. microsperma (Wahlenberg) Dewey; C. vulpinoidea var. pycnocephala F. J. Hermann; C. vulpinoidea var. scabrior (Dewey) Alph. Wood; C. vulpinoidea var. segregata Farwell; C. vulpinoidea var. setacea (Dewey) Kükenthal

Carex vulpinoidea Michx, Fl. Bor. Am. 2: 169. 1803
Cam micro: perma Wahl Sv Vet •Akad Nya Hindi. 24: 144. 1803. (Type ti"i" Pennsylvania
Carex twlh/lwi Muhl . W.lld 9p PI 4:243 i (Typ from Pennsylvania.)
(arex '-.' lomem Hon Haiti
Carex polymorpkaSchm Aim I '. . 1:65. 1824. (Typ< from New hi ej md(
C. pcAymmpha Muhl 1X17 Carex bracteosa Schw.; Schw. & Torr. Ann. Lye. N. Y. 1: 306. 1825* (Type in herb. Torrey
from North Carolina.) Carex setacea Dewey, Am. Jour. Sci. 9: 61. pi. B, f. 5. 182S.t (Type from western Massachusetts.) Carex mulliflora var. microsperma Dewev. Am. Jour. Sci. 11: 317. 1826. (Based on C. microsperma
Wahl.) Vignea setacea Raf. Good Book 27. 1840. (Based on Carex setacea Dewey.) Carex vulpinaeformis Tuckerm. Enum. Caric. 9. 1843. (Based on C. vulpinoidea Michx.) Carex vulpinoidea var. microspcrma Dewey, in Wood, Class-Book ed. 2. 577. 1847. (Based on C.
microsperma Wahl.) Carex scabrior Sartw. ; Dewey, Am. Jour. Sci. II. 8: 349. 1849. (Type from Penn Yan, New York.) Carex vulpinoidea var. glomerala Barratt; Boott, 111. Carex 125. pi. 404 (in part). 1862. (Type
from Connecticut.) Carex vulpinoidea var. scabrior Wood. Bot. & Fl. ed. 1871. 371. 1871. (Based on C. scabrior
Sartw.) Carex vulpinoidea var. setacea Kiikenth. in Engler, Pflanzenreich 4 20 : 148. 1909. (Based on
C. setacea Dewey.) Carex vulpinoidea var. segregata Farwell. Rep. Mich. Acad. 22: 180. 1921. (Type from Dundee,
Michigan.)
Cespitose, the rootstocks short-prolonged, rather stout, tough, blackish, fibrillose, the culms 2-9 dm. high, normally exceeded by the leaves, usually 3-4 mm. thick at base, slender but stiff, sharply triangular with fiat sides above, roughened on the angles above, darkbrownish at base; leaves with well-developed blades usually 4 or 5 to a culm, on lower half, but not bunched, the blades erect-ascending, lightor yellowish-green, flat, or somewhat channeled at base, 1-5 dm. long, 2-4 mm. wide, long-tapering, strongly roughened on the margins and towards the apex, the sheaths tight, ventrally thin, cross-rugulose, and greenishwhite or more or less olive-tinged, short-convex, thickened and slightly prolonged at mouth beyond base of blade, the ligule wider than long, dark-margined; spikes numerous, in a compound terminal head 3-10 cm. (usually 5-8 cm.) long, 5-20 mm. thick, the lower branches more or less separate, the upper densely aggregated; heads greenish-yellow when young, brownish-yellow at maturity, the individual spikes distinguished with difficulty; staminate flowers apical, inconspicuous, with the several to many spreading or ascending-spreading perigynia beneath; bracts setaceous-prolonged, very variable in length and size, but almost invariably present and conspicuous; scales ovate, yellowish-brown-hyaline with 3-nerved green center and hyaline margins, narrower than the perigynia, and terminating in a rough awn about the length of the lower and exceeding the upper perigynia in each spike; perigynia plano-convex, membranaceous, 2-2 5 mm. long, 1-1.5 mm. wide, yellowish-green or strawcolored, the body ovate-orbicular or orbicular, thick-edged and corky-margined to the rounded or round-tapering base, flat and nerveless or nearly so ventrally, rounded and slenderly several-nerved dorsally, slightly green-margined above, often serrulate at base of beak, shortstipitate, contracted into a serrulate or entire-margined J beak about the length of the body, dorsally cleft, bidentate, the teeth triangular, subulate, sharp; achenes lenticular, orbicularovate, stipitate, long-tapering at base, rounded and short-apiculate at apex, about 1 mm. long; style short, slender, enlarged at base, jointed with achene; stigmas two, slender, elongate, light-reddish-brown.
Type locality: "Hab. in Canada et Nova Anglia."
Distribution: Swampy places, Newfoundland to Vancouver Island, and southward to Florida, Texas, Arizona, and Oregon. One of our most widely distributed and abundant species. Introduced into Europe. (Specimens examined from Newfoundland, Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Ontario, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey. Pennsylvania, Delaware. District of Columbia. Maryland. Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina. South Carolina. Georgia, Alabama, Florida. Mississippi. Tennessee. Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, Illinois. Minnesota, Iowa. Missouri, Arkansas. Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma. Kansas, Nebraska. South Dakota, North Dakota, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Colorado, New Mexico. Arizona. Idaho. Washington. Oergon, British Columbia.)

Carex muhlenbergii Schkuhr (Wilid. Sp. PI. 4: 231, name oniy 1805), Riedgr. Naclitr. 12. pi. Yyy, f. 178. 1806.
Carex pinelorum Willd.; Schlecht. Linnaea 10: 265. 1835. (Type from North Carolina.) Carex piniaria Bosc; Schlecht. Linnaea 10: 265. 1835. (As synonym of C. pinelorum Willd.) "Carex muricata L." Schlecht & Cham. Linnaea 6: 29. 1831. Vignea Muhlenbergii Raf. Good Book 27. 1840. (Based on Carex Muhlenbergii Schkuhr.)
Cespitose, from lignescent, short-prolonged, dark, fibrillose rootstocks, the culms 2-9 dm. high, stifl, sharply triangular, very rough above, leafy on lower fifth, much exceeding leaves, light-brownish at base, the dried-up leaves of the previous year very conspicuous; leaves with well-developed blades 5-10 to a culm, the blades ascending or spreading, thick, lightgreen, usually 1-3 dm. long, 2-4 mm. wide, flat or channeled at base, long-tapering, much roughened towards apex and on the margins, the sheaths tight, not septate-nodulose, little if at all cross-rugulose, concave and thickened and yellowish-brown-tinged at mouth, the ligule about as wide as long; spikes 3-10, androgynous, densely aggregated into an oblong head 1.5-4 cm. long, about 1 cm. thick, the lower at least well-defined and distinguishable, the staminate flowers few and inconspicuous, with lanceolate, cuspidate scales, the 8-20 perigynia ascending or at length spreading; bracts bristle-form, short but usually conspicuous; scales ovate, greenish-hyaline with 3-nerved green center, cuspidate or aristate, narrower than and (excluding awn) from somewhat shorter than to about length of bodies of perigynia ; perigj'nia plano-convex, 3-3.5 mm. long, 2.25-2.5 mm. wide, broadly ovate or orbicular, broadest below middle, and round-tapering and scarcely spongy at base, subcoriaceous, palegreen, the dorsal side strongly many-ribbed, the ventral side many-ribbed, slightly elevated in the center and with slightly elevated sharp margins to base, serrulate from above the middle, abruptly short-beaked, the beak 1 mm. long, rather broadly bidentate with short-triangular teeth, hyaline within, both sutures conspicuous; achenes lenticular, suborbicular, 2 mm. long, 1.75 mm. wide, filling body of perigynium, abruptly substipitate, not at all or very shortly apiculate; style short, slender, enlarged at base, jointed with achene; stigmas two, reddishbrown, slender, long.
Type locality: "Habitat in America boreali," i. e.. Pennsylvania (Muhlenberg) .
Distribution: Sand hills and dry sterile fields and hills, especially on the coastal plain and around the Great Lakes, Maine to Minnesota, and southward to Florida and Texas. (Specimens examined from Ontario, Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York. New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, District of Columbia, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina. Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Texas, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Iowa.)

Carex vulpinoidea is a species of sedge known as fox sedge and American fox-sedge. It is native to North America, including most of Canada, the Dominican Republic, the United States and parts of Mexico. It is known in Europe and New Zealand as an introduced species. The sedge lives in wet and seasonally wet habitat, and grows easily as a roadside weed. It produces clumps of stems up to a meter tall. The inflorescence is a dense, tangled cluster of many flower spikes up to about 10 cm (3.9 in) long. Tolerates fluctuating water levels and periods of drying.