Hall's Sedge

Plants colonial; rhizomes long-creeping. Culms central, trigonous, 10–40(–50) cm, smooth, base with remains of previous year’s leaves. Leaves: basal sheaths straw colored to dark brown, the youngest tinged reddish purple, apex of inner band glabrous; ligules 0.8-1.6 mm; blades M-shaped distally, channeled proximally; 2–5.5 mm wide, glabrous. Inflorescences 8–25 cm; peduncle of terminal spike 0.7–3 cm; proximal 2–4 spikes pistillate or, sometimes, androgynous, erect; terminal 1–3 spikes staminate. Pistillate scales ovate, apex otuse to acute, glabrous or scabrous-margined apically. Perigynia ascending, 12–20-veined, ovoid, 3.5–5.5 × 1.6–2.2 mm, pubescent; beak hyaline, 1.2–1.7 mm, ciliate, bidentulate, teeth straight, 0.2–0.6 mm.

Calif., Oreg., Wash.

Fruiting Jun–Sep.

Dry, sandy, gravelly or rocky meadows, shores, other open habitats; 1400–2000m.

Carex oregonensis Olney ex L. H. Bailey

Carex halliana L. H. Bailey, Bot. Gaz. 9: 117. 1884
Carex oregonensis Olney; A. Gray, Proc. Am. Acad. 8: 407, name only. 1872; L. H. Bailey, Proc. Am. Acad. 22: 73. 1886.
Loosely cespitose, and stoloniferous, the stolons long, horizontal, slender, rather tough, scaly, the clumps small, the culms erect, 1-5 dm. high, stiff, sharply triangular, smooth, phyllopodic, exceeding or about equaling leaves, brownish or but slightly purplish-reddened at base, and little or not at all fibrillose ; sterile shoots more or less elongate, with ascending or erect blades; leaves with well-developed blades 4-8 to a fertile culm, clustered near base, sparingly septate-nodulose, the blades thick, glabrous, light-green, 1-3 dm. long, 3-5 mm. wide, flat above, strongly channeled at base, long-attenuate, and much roughened towards apex; sheaths tight, not breaking, yellowish-brown-tinged ventrally, concave at mouth, the ligule as wide as long; terminal 2 or 3 spikes staminate, approximate, sessile or short-peduncled, linear-clavate, 0.8-2.5 cm. long, 2.5-4 mm. wide, the peduncle smooth, the scales oblongobovate, acutish, glabrous, erose, purplish-brown with lighter center and dull-white-hyaline margins; pistillate spikes usually 3 or 4, more or less strongly separate, erect-appressed, the upper sessile or nearly so, the lower peduncled, the peduncles smooth, the spikes linear cylindric, 1.5-5 cm. long, 4.5-6 mm. wide, closely flowered above or attenuate at base, containing 20-40 appressed-ascending perigynia in several rows; bracts leaf -like, exceeding or equaling the culms, the lowest bract conspicuously sheathing, the others less so, the sheaths 15 mm. long or less; scales ovate, acute to cuspidate, slightly wider to rather narrower than and from about half to nearly length of perigynia, purplish-brown with conspicuous 3-nerved green center and dull-white-hyaline margins; perigynia with ovoid or obovoid body, little inflated, obtusely triangular in cross-section, 4-5 mm. long, 2-2.25 mm. wide, densely whitehispid, obscurely but strongly 15-20-ribbed, subcoriaceous, light-brownish, rounded at base, contracted at apex into the broad, strongly bidentate beak one fourth to one third the length of the whole, the teeth whitish, erect or slightly spreading, 0.25-0.5 mm. long, rough within; achenes obovoid, 2.5 mm. long, 1.5-1.75 mm. wide, closely enveloped, filling body of perigynium, sharply triangular with concave sides, sessile, brown, apiculate, jointed with the straight slender style; stigmas 3, slender, blackish.
Type locality: Oregon.
Distribution: Mountain meadows, from southern Washington to Siskiyou county, California. (Specimens examined from Washington, Oregon, northern California.)

Carex halliana is a tussock-forming species of perennial sedge in the family Cyperaceae. It is native to western parts of the United States.