Sparse Flowered Sedge

Plants loosely cespitose; rhizomes long, slender. Culms ± erect, weak, 10–50 cm. Leaves: sheaths pale brown abaxially, inner band hyaline, concave at summit; ligules as long as wide; blades pale green, flat or channeled, 5–15 cm × 0.5–2 mm. Inflorescences erect, ovoid or suborbicular, 0.6–1.2 cm × 4–9 mm; proximal bracts scalelike, sometimes bristlelike, shorter than inflorescences. Spikes 2–4, gynecandrous, closely approximate, containing 3–15 perigynia, short-oblong, 4–9 × 3–6 mm. Pistillate scales white-hyaline with green, 3-veined center, ovate, subequal to perigynia, apex obtuse. Perigynia appressed-ascending, gray-green, obscurely few-veined, obovate-elliptic, 3–3.5 × 1.5–1.75 mm, subcoriaceous; beak absent or nearly so. Achenes pale brown, oblong-elliptic, 1.5–2 × 1.25(–1.5) mm, glossy. 2n = 58.

Alta., B.C., Man., N.B., Nfld. and Labr., N.W.T., Ont., P.E.I., Que., Sask., Yukon; Alaska, Colo., Maine, Mass., Mich., Minn., Mont., Ohio, N.Y., Vt., Wis.; n Eurasia.

Fruiting May–Aug.

Mires, especially sphagnum bogs, wet woodlands, lowlands; 0–1400m.

Carex tenuiflora Wahl. Sv. Vet.-Akad. Xya Handl 24: 147. 1803.
Carex leucolepis Turcz.; Steud. Nom. Bot. ed. 2. 1: 292; hyponym. 1840. (Type from "Sibir-
baical. "Carex tenuiflora var. setacea Kiikenth. in Engler, Pflanzenreich 4-°: 224. 1909. (Type from Lansing, Michigan.)
Loosely cespitose, in large clumps, the rootstocks very slender, much elongate, yellowishbrown, the nodes widely separate; the culms 1.5-6 dm. high, triangular, very slender, exceeding the leaves, somewhat roughened beneath the head, brownish at base and conspicuously clothed with the dried-up leaves of the previous year; leaves with well-developed blades 3-7 to a fertile culm, clustered on the lower third, the blades erect-ascending, pale-green, soft, flat or somewhat canaliculate, usually 5-15 cm. long, 0.5-2 mm. wide, roughened towards the apex, the sheaths tight, hyaline ventrally, very thin, short-prolonged at mouth beyond base of blade and continuous with ligule; spikes 2-4, gynaecandrous, whitish, rather loosely flowered, closely aggregated into an ovoid or suborbicular head 6-12 mm. long, 4-9 mm. thick, the spikes short-oblong or suborbicular, 4—9 mm. long, 3-6 mm. wide, obtuse at apex, obtuse or clavate at base, with 5-15 appressed-ascending or at length more or less spreading perigynia, the basal staminate flowers inconspicuous; bracts scale-like or the lowest short-prolonged, shorter than head; scales ovate, or oblong-ovate, obtuse, whitish with green 3-nerved center, about as wide, and as long as and concealing the perigynia; perigynia plano-convex, obovateoval, 3-3.5 mm. long, 1.5-1.75 mm. wide, thick, subcoriaceous, greenish-white, densely white-puncticulate, sharp-edged, obscurely few-nerved on both surfaces, short-stipitate, spongy and rounded at base, tapering at apex and beakless or very minutely beaked, the beak 0.2 mm. long, obliquely cleft dorsally, yellowish-brown-tinged, slightly emarginate, smooth or rarely somewhat toothed; achenes lenticular, oblong-oval, closely enveloped by perigynia, sessile, short-apiculate, 2 mm. long, 1.5 mm. wide; style very short, jointed with achene, at length deciduous; stigmas two, slender, dark-reddish-brown, conspicuous, elongate.
Type locality: "Hab. in graminosis humidis Lapponiae."
Distribution: Sphagnum bogs, Labrador and Newfoundland to Yukon and southern Alaska, and southward to Maine, Michigan, and Minnesota; also in northern Eurasia. (Specimens examined from Labrador, Newfoundland, Quebec, Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, New York, Ontario, Michigan. Wisconsin, Manitoba, Minnesota, Saskatchewan, Yukon.)

Carex tenuiflora, the sparse-flowered sedge, is a species of flowering plant in the family Cyperaceae. It is native to the Subarctic and Hemiboreal Northern Hemisphere; Alaska, Canada, the northern US, Scandinavia, the Baltic States, all of Russia, the north Caucasus, Siberia, the Russian Far East, Mongolia, northern China, Korea, and Japan. It is most often found in peatlands, preferring a pH of 6.