New England Sedge

Recently discovered plants on the coastal plain in South Carolina resemble Carex novae-angliae in habit and perigynium features and have well-developed basal spikes. They require further study to determine their relationships with other members of the section.

Plants loosely cespitose; rhizomes ascending to erect, reddish to reddish brown, 0–10(–20) mm, slender. Culms 5–40 cm, weakly scabrous distally; bases not fibrous. Leaf blades green, equaling or exceeding culms, 0.7–1.5 mm wide, herbaceous, smooth to papillose abaxially, weakly scabrous adaxially. Inflorescences with both staminate and proximal spikes; peduncles of staminate spikes 1.9–5.9 mm; proximal nonbasal bracts leaflike, equaling or shorter than inflorescences. Spikes: proximal pistillate spikes 2–3 (basal spikes 0); cauline spikes remote, nonoverlapping, proximal 2 usually separated by more than 7 mm, with 3–10 perigynia; staminate spikes 4–15 × 0.7–1.3 mm. Scales: pistillate scales pale brown to pale reddish brown, ovate, 2–2.5 × 1–1.4 mm, shorter than to equaling perigynia, apex cuspidate to acuminate; staminate scales oblong to oblanceolate, 3.1–4.6 × 0.7–1.3 mm, apex long-acuminate to obtuse. Anthers 1.5–2.1 mm. Perigynia pale green, veinless, ellipsoid, 2.2–2.6 × 0.8–1 mm, longer than wide; beak 0.3–0.7 mm, straight, pale green, apical teeth 0.2–0.3 mm. Stigmas 3. Achenes dark brown, obovoid to ellipsoid, acutely trigonous in cross section, 1.4–1.7 × 0.7–0.9 mm.

St. Pierre and Miquelon; N.B., Nfld. and Labr., N.S., Ont., Que.; Conn., Maine, Mass., Mich., N.H., N.Y., Pa., S.C., Vt., W.Va., Wis.

Fruiting early Jun–early Jul.

Moist to mesic sites, in shade or partial shade under mixed deciduous forests, occasionally under spruce-hemlock canopies; 100–1000m.

Carex novae-angliae Schw Ann. Lye. N. Y. 1: 67. 1824
Carex collecta Dewey, Am. Jour. Sci. 11: 314. pi. N.f. 44. 1826. (Type from Worthington, Mziss.) Carex pilulifera f. americana Bock. Linnaea 41 : 216. 1877. (As to C. Novae-Angliae Schw. only.) Carex pilulifera var. Novae-Angliae Kurtz. Bot. Jahrb. 19: 419. 1894. (Technically based on C.
Novae-Angliae Schw.) Carex varia var. Novae-Angliae Kiikcnth. in Engler, Pflanzenreich 4-": 449. 1909. (Based on C.
Novae-Angliae Schw.)
Very loosely cespitose and more or less strongly stoloniferous, the stolons very slender, scaly, the culms 0.5-4 dm. high, very slender, sharply triangular, rough above, weak but erect, shorter than the leaves of the sterile culms, phyllopodic, reddish-purple and fibrillose at base, the dried-up leaves of the previous year several, conspicuous, long-bladed; sterile shoots elongate, lateral, strongly aphyUopodic, the well-developed leaves clustered near the top; fertile culms bearing one to several leaves of the year, with well-developed blades, on lower third, the blades 0.5-15 cm. long, exceeded by the culms, 0.75-1.5 mm. wide, thin, flaccid, pale-green, soft, ascending or erect, roughened on the margins and towards the apex, the sheaths tight, concave at mouth, rarely breaking and becoming conspicuously fibrillose, the ligule short; leaves of sterile culms with longer (1-2.5 dm.) blades; staminate spike solitary, erect, sessile or short-peduncled, very slender, narrowly linear or filiform, 4—16 mm. long, 0.5-1 mm. wide, the scales oblong-lanceolate, closely appressed, long-acuminate to obtuse, reddish-brown or straw-colored with hyaline margins; pistillate spikes usually 2 or 3, none radical, more or less widely separated, all erect, the uppermost sessile, the second sessile or short-peduncled, the third short-peduncled, 3-6 mm. long, 3 mm. wide, oblong or suborbicular, containing 2-10 ascending perig>'nia; bracts not sheathing, green and but little colored at base, leaflet-like, the lowest from nearly equaling to exceeding the culms, the upper much smaller; scales ovate, abruptly short-cuspidate, not ciliate, usually wider than but somewhat exceeded by the perignia, hyaline, often strongly tinged with reddish-brown, the midvein green, sharply defined; perig>'nia narrowly obovoid, obtusely triangular, 2.5 mm. long, the body oblong-obovoid, 1.25 mm. long, 0.75 mm. wide, 2-ridged but otherwise nerveless, sparsely appressed-pubescent, membranaceous, light-green or somewhat yellowish-brown-tinged, entirely filled by achene, short-stipitate, tapering to a spongy base 0.5 mm. long, very abruptly contracted into a minute beak 0.25-0.5 mm. long, with bidentate orifice; achenes oblongobovoid, triangular with convex sides and blunt greenish angles, dark-brownish, 1.5 mm. long, 0.9 mm. wide, tapering at base, minutely apiculate; style short, slightly thickened at base, jointed with achene, deciduous; stigmas three, slender, dark-reddish-brown, rather long.
Type loc.m.ity: "New England"; and, more definitely (Ann. Lye. N. Y. 1: 328): "On Saddle Mountain, Williamstown, Massachusetts, about 3000 feet above the sea."
Distribution: Woodlands, Newfoundland to Wisconsin, and locally southward at higher altitudes to northwestern Connecticut and Pennsylvania. (Specimens examined from Newfoundland, St. Pierre, Quebec, Prince Edward Island. Nova Scotia. New Brunswick. Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, northwestern Connecticut, New York, northern Pennsylvania, Ontario, Wisconsin.)

Carex novae-angliae, the New England sedge, is a Carex species that is native to North America.