Kobresia bellardi

Kobresia bellardi (All.) Degland, in Loisel. Fl. Gall 626. 1807.
Carex Bellardi hW.'PX.Ved. 2: 2(>i. pi. 92, f. 2. 1785. (Type from northern Italy.)
Carex myosuroides Vill. Hist. PI. Dauph. 2: 194. pi. 6. 1787. (Type from southeastern France.)
Carex dioica var. Lam. Encyc. 3: 378, in part. 1791. (Merely a questioned reference of
Carex myosuroides Vill.) Carex hermaphrodita J. F. Gmel. Syst. Nat. 2: 139. 1791. (Based on C. myosuroides Vill.) Kobresia scirpina Willd. Sp. PI. 4: 205. 1805. ("Habitat in summis alpibus Sabaudiae, Tyrolis.
Carinthiae, Styriae et Delphinatus.") Froelichia caricoides Wulfen (Willd. Sp. PI. 4: 205, as synonym, 1805), Fl. Norica Phan. 729. 1858.
(Based on Care.x Bellardi All.) Elyna spicata Schrad. Fl. Germ. 1: 155. 1806. (Type from central Europe.) Scirpus Bellardi Wahl. Fl. Lapp. 15. 1812. (Based on Carex Bellardi All.)
Elyyia Bellardi Hartm. Sv. Vet.-Akad. Handl. 1814: 107. 1814. (Based on Carex Bellardi All.) Carex affinis R. Br. ; Richards, in Frankl. Journey 763. 1823. (Type from 54°-64° northwestern
Canada.) ifofrr«5m;ii!yo)-mjiTorr.; Dewey, Am. Jour. Sci. 29:253. pl.Z.f.SS. 1836. (Type from Carleton
House, northwestern Canada.) Carex lucida Dicks.; Steud. Nom. Bot. ed. 2. 1: 292. 1840. (Based on Elyna spicata Schrad.) Elyna slricla Hoppe; Steud. Nom. Bot. ed. 2. 1: 551. 1840. (Based on E. spicata Schrad.) " Elyna filijormis Dewey" Steud. Syn. Cyp. 245. 1855. (Based on Kobresia filiformis "Dewey"
[Torr.].) Elyna scirpina Pax, in E. & P. Nat. Pfl. 2-: 122. 1887. (Based on Kobresia scirpina Willd.) Kobresia myosuroides Fiori & Paol. Ic. Fl. Ital. 52. /. 441. 1896. (Based on Carex myosuroides
Vill.) Carex scirpina Missb. & Krause, in Sturm, Fl. Deuts. ed. 2. 2 : 63. 1900. (Based on Kobresia scirtina
Willd.)
Very densely cespitose, in large to small clumps, the rootstocks very short, not at all creeping, tough, thick, lignescent, the culms 0.5-3.5 dm. high, slender but strict, stiff and wiry, obtusely triangular, smooth, from about equaling to exceeding the leaves, phyllopodic, but the lowest sheaths bladeless, dull-cinnamon-brown-tinged at base, the persistent dried-up leaves of the previous year conspicuous, mostly reduced to bladeless sheaths; leaves with well-deP.«!T I, 19.31] CYPERACEAE 5
veloped blades 7-15 to a culm, densely clustered on lower fifth or sixth, the blades acicular, dull-green, 0.2-2 dm. long, 0.25-0.5 mm. wide, erect to strongly curved, long-attenuate, roughened towards apex, the tips usually dried-up, tapering into the strongly striate, chartaceous, very conspicuous, smooth, somewhat shining, cinnamon-brown sheaths, sparingly fibrillose in age, hyaline and reddish-brown-tinged and concave at mouth ventrally, the ligule little wider than long; spike solitary, bractless, linear, subclavate, 1-3 cm. long, 2-3 mm. wide, closely flow-ered above, somewhat loosely at base, the terminal spikelet with several staminate flowers, the lateral 10-20 appressed, androgynous with one pistillate and one staminate flower, or rarely with pistillate flower only; scales small, 2-3 mm. long, obtuse or subcuspidate, chartaceous, closely appressed, brown, shining, with midvein sharply defined below, conspicuously whitish-hyaline and scarious above, exceeding the perigynia; perigynia oblong-obovoid, 3-3.5 mm. long, 1.25 mm. wide, broadly stipitate, light-chestnut-brown, smooth, shining, very thin and chartaceous, the apex hyaline, entire, closely enveloping the achene, the margins free to base or verynearly so; achenes shorter than perigj'nia, oblong-obovoid, 2.5-2.75 mm. long, I.l mm. wide, at first greenish, soon brownish and shining, triangular and slightly concave towards base, with conspicuous, blunt, greenish angles, broadly short-stipitate, very nearly beakless, jointed with the straight slender style, its base somewhat enlarged; stigmas three, long, slender, brown; rachilla sometimes present, very slender, greenish, roughish, about equaling achene.
Type locality (of Carex Bellardi All., on which Kobresia Bellardi is based): "Loc. Nascitur in alpibus di Ussey prope L'Antaret in saxorum rimis CI. Bellardi"; northern Italy.
Distribution: Moist open places in calcareous soil, Greenland to Alaska, and southward in the western mountains to Colorado and eastern Oregon; also in Europe. (Specimens examined from Greenland, Ellesmereland, Yukon. Alaska, Alberta, Colorado, eastern Oregon.)