Softleaf Sedge

Plants with loose, branching system of slender, pale brown rhizomes. Culms very slender, nodding, 15–60 cm, exceeding leaves, scabrid. Leaves: basal sheaths pale brown abaxially, inner band white-hyaline, truncate at summit; ligules broader than long; blades mid to dark green, flat, 15–30 × 0.75–1.5 mm, scabrid. Inflorescences 1.5–2.5 cm × 3–5 mm; proximal bract 5–20 mm; distal bracts scalelike. Spikes 2–4(–5), proximal separate, distal aggregate, globose, 3–5 × 2–4 mm. Pistillate scales white-hyaline with green center, ovate, narrower and shorter than perigynia, apex acuminate. Perigynia 1–6, pale green, often brown or even purplish in age, plump, 2.25–3 × 1.3–1.5 mm, membranous, shiny. Achenes red-brown, oblong-elliptic, 1.5–1.75 × 1 mm, glossy. 2n = 70.

Greenland; Alta., B.C., Man., N.B., Nfld. and Labr., N.W.T., N.S., Ont., P.E.I., Que., Sask., Yukon; Alaska, Calif., Colo., Conn., Idaho, Ind., Maine, Mass., Mich., Minn., Mont., Nev., N.H., N.J., N.Mex., N.Y., N.Dak., Ohio, Oreg., Pa., S.Dak., Utah, Vt., Wash., Wis., Wyo.; Eurasia.

Fruiting May–Aug.

Swamps, bogs, wet meadows, mossy and shady coniferous woods; 0–3500m.

Carex tenella Schkuhr

Carex disperma Dewey, Am. Jour. Sci. 8: 266. 1824
Carex tenW/a Schkuhr, Riedgr. 23. pi. Pp.f. 104. 1801. (Type thought to have come from Saxony.)
Not C. tenella Thuill 1799. "Carex loliacea L." Schkuhr, Riedgr. Nachtr. 18. in part. 1806. Carex disperma var. tetrasperma Beck, Bot. U. S. 432. 1833. (Type not given.) Vignea disperma Raf. Good Book 27. KS40. (Based on Carex disperma Dewey.) Carex Blyttii F. N'yl. Spic. PI. Fenn. 2: 35. 1844. (Type from Finland.)
"Carex gracilis Khrh." A. Gray, Am. Jour. Sci. II. 4: 19. 1847. (Not C. gracilis Curt. 1783.) Carex misera Franchet, Bull. Soc. Philom. VIII. 7: 31. 1895. (Type from Japan.) Not C. miser
Buckle*. 1843; nor C. mis,ra Phil. 1860. Carex tenella var. misera F'ranchet, Nouv. Arch. Mus. Paris III. 8: 224. 1896. (Based on C. misera
Franchet. i Carex tenella f. brachycarpa Kukenth. Allg. Bot. Zeits. 15: 36. 1909. (Type from island of Sachalin,
eastern Asia.)
Loosely cespitose, sending forth long, very slender, light-brown stolons, the culms very slender, weak, triangular, 1.5-6 dm. high, exceeding the leaves, roughened beneath head, light-brown at base and conspicuously clothed with the dried-up leaves of the previous year; leaves with well-developed blades 3-6 to a culm, bunched on lower third, the blades ercetascending, 3 dm. long or less (usually about 1.5 dm.), 0.75-1.5 (rarely 2 mm.) wide, deepsi. it, thin, soft, strongly minutely serrulate on the margins and on the veins, the sheaths
tight, very' thin and hyaline ventrally, short-prolonged beyond base ol blade ami contii
with ligule, spikes 2-4, androgynous, in a terminal head 1.5 2.5 cm. long, 3 S nun. thick,
the lo 'I, the upper aggregated; staminate Mowers i or 2, apical, inconspicuous,
the 1-6 ascending perigynia borne below; bracts bristle form, omew lial enlai gl 'I it base, I em long or less, often rudimentary; scales ovate-triangular, while hyaline, tin midrib acuminate or short-mucronate, narrower and shortei than the perigynia; perigynia unequal ly biconvex, oblong ovoid, 2.2S I mm. long, I i mm. wide, very thick, Kghl grei D 01 I
rellowish-green, iharp-edged above, finely many-nerved on both ides, iudcoi i .densely
white -puuet a) and rounded al ba ummlt
and abruptly contracted into a minute beak (0.2S mm. Ion oi th, lender, ob
ttquely cut dorsally, entire, hyaline ai orifio tlcular, oblong elliptic, completely
filling the perigynia, 1.7J mm. long, i nun, wide, itelj rery ihorl spiculate,
brownih yellow, -.hilling ' length deciduOU ti
two, slender, reddish Type locality: Massachusetts (Dewey).
Distribution: Boggy coniferous woods, Labrador and Newfoundland to Yukon and southern Alaska, and southward to northern New Jersey. Indiana. New Mexico, and the Sierra Nevada of California; also in the northern parts of Eurasia. (Specimens examined from Labrador, Newfoundland, Quebec. Prince Edward Island. Nova Scotia, New Brunswick. Maine. New Hampshire. Vermont. Massachusetts. Connecticut. New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ontario. Michigan, Indiana. Wisconsin. Minnesota. South Dakota, Manitoba, Saskatchewan. Alberta. Montana. Wyoming, Colorado. New Mexico. Utah, Nevada, Idaho, California. Oregon, Washington, British Columbia (including Vancouver Island). Alaska. Yukon.)

Carex disperma is a species of sedge known by the common names softleaf sedge or two-seed sedge. It is native to much of the northern Northern Hemisphere, from Alaska to Greenland, most of Canada and the contiguous United States, and across Eurasia.