Mountain Fringed Sedge

Plants cespitose. Culms acutely angled, 45–140 cm, scabrous. Leaves: basal sheaths red-brown or brown; sheaths of proximal leaves bladeless, scabrous, fronts red-brown to copper-brown, spots absent, indistinctly ladder-fibrillose; blades 12–55 cm × 4–10.5 mm. Inflorescences: peduncle of proximal spike 0.6–6.1 cm; proximal bract longer than inflorescence, 1.9–9.5 mm wide. Spikes 2–5 pistillate, 1–3 staminate, pendent; proximal pistillate spike 2.4–10.4 cm × 3–8.4 mm, base cuneate to acuminate. Pistillate scales pale brown to copper-brown, 3.1–8.2 mm (including awn), midvein reaching apex, apex of body acuminate or, rarely, truncate, awned. Perigynia ascending, pale brown, 0–5-veined abaxially, scarcely inflated, loosely enclosing achenes, ovoid to ellipsoid, 1.9–4.2 × 1.1–2.3 mm, dull, apex acute or obtuse, glabrous; beak 0.1–0.3 mm. Achenes variously constricted. 2n = 66, 68.

St. Pierre and Miquelon; N.B., N.S., Nunavut, Ont., P.E.I., Que.; Conn., Ga., Ky., Maine, Md., Mass., Mich., Minn., N.H., N.J., N.Y., N.C., Ohio, Pa., R.I., S.C., Tenn., Vt., Va., W.Va., Wis.

Fruiting Jun–Aug.

Swamps, floodplain forests, wet meadows, marshes, bogs, stream edges, margins of lakes and ponds, roadside ditches; 0–2100m.

Carex crinita Lamarck var. gynandra (Schweinitz) Schweinitz & Torrey; C. crinita var. simulans Fernald; C. gynandra var. simulans (Fernald) Rolland-Germain

Carex gynandra Schw. Ann. Lye. N. Y. 1: 70. 1824
Carex crinila var. gynandra Schw. & Torr. Ann. Lye. N. Y. 1 : 360. 1826. (Based on C. gynandra Schw.)
Carex asperala Boott, 111. Carex 18. 1858. (As synonym.)
Carex crinita var. minor Boott, 111. Carex 18, in part (i. e. Schkuhr f. 168). 1858.
Carex Porleri Olney, Caric. Bor.-Am. 12. 1871. (Type from Moosehead Lake, Maine.)
Carex crinita var. angusta Olney, Caric. Bor.-Am. 5, name only. 1871.
Carex gynandra var. Porteri Britton; Britt. & Brown, 111. Fl. 1: 315. 1896. (Technically based on C. Porleri Olney.)
Carex crinita var. Porteri Fernald, Proc. Portl. Soc. Nat. Hist. 2: 135. 1897. (Based on C. Porteri Olney.)
Carex crinita var. simulans Fernald, Proc. Portl. Soc. Nat. Hist. 2: 135. 1897. (Type from Greenville, Maine.)
Cespitose in large clumps, from stout rootstocks, the stolons very short, ascending, the culms 4—10 dm. high, erect, stout, and thick at base (4—7 mm.), slender and weak above, exceeding the leaves, papillose, sharply triangular with concave sides and thickened angles, more or less roughened above, strongly aphyllopodic, reddish-purple-tinged at base, the basal sheaths breaking and becoming filamentose; sterile shoots aphyllopodic; leaves with welldeveloped blades 3-5 to a fertile culm, on the lower half, but not bunched, little septatenodulose, the blades flat with revolute margins, usually 1-4 dm. long, 3-12 mm. wide, firm, yellowish-green, strongly roughened towards apex; sterile-culm leaves longer; sheaths strongly rough-hispidulous, brownish-yellow-tinged ventrally, prolonged upwards beyond base of blade, the ligule much longer than wide; staminate spikes 1-3, on slender peduncles, often drooping, occasionally partly pistillate, narrowly linear, often flexuous, 2-6 cm. long, 2-3 mm. wide, the scales oblong-obovate to linear-lanceolate, short-awned to acuminate or acute, yellowish or brownish with green center; pistillate spikes 2-5, approximate, drooping (or occasionally somewhat erect) on rough or smooth peduncles varying from twice the length to somewhat shorter than the spikes, the spikes narrowly cylindric, usually curving, 2.5-10 cm. long, 8-12 mm. wide, often strongly staminate at apex, densely flowered, the perigynia very many, ascending in several rows; bracts leaf-like, sheathless or nearly so, the two or three lower exceeding culm, the upper reduced; scales with ovate or ovate-lanceolate bodies tapering into a long, serrulate, ascending or spreading awn, somewhat narrower than and (including the awn) from 2-3 times the length (the lower) to little exceeding (the upper) the perigynia, the center of the bodies 3-ribbed, green, the remainder yellowish-brown or reddishbrown; perigynia oblong-obovoid to ovoid-oblong, flattened-biconvex, not or slightly inflated, 2-ribbed (the marginal), otherwise nearly nerveless, 3-4 mm. long, 1.5-2 mm. wide, membranaceous but rather firm, puncticulate, smooth or nearly so, brownish at base, green above, rounded or round-truncate at base, substipitate, short-tapering or round-tapering and minutely apiculate at apex, the beak 0.25 mm. long with entire orifice; achenes lenticular, in lower two thirds of perigynium, substipitate, oblong-ovoid, 2 mm. long, 1.25 mm. wide, brownish, usually strongly constricted in the middle, short-apiculate, jointed with the slender bent style (slightly thickened at base) ; stigmas 2, short.
Type locality: "Carol."
Distribution: Swampy woodlands, Newfoundland to Wisconsin, and southward to Florida and Louisiana. (Specimens examined from Newfoundland, Quebec, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Ontario, Wisconsin, Michigan, Delaware, Maryland, District of Columbia, West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana.)

Carex gynandra, also known as nodding sedge, is a species of flowering plant in the sedge family, Cyperaceae. It is native to eastern Canada and the United States.