176. Carex crinita Lamarck in J. Lamarck et al., Encycl. 3: 393. 1791.
Plants cespitose. Culms acutely angled, 40–150 cm, scabrous. Leaves: basal sheaths red-brown or brown; sheaths of proximal leaves bladeless, glabrous, fronts red-brown to copper-brown, spots absent, indistinctly ladder-fibrillose, apex U-shaped; blades hypostomic, abaxially papillose. Proximal bract longer than inflorescence, 3–6 mm wide. Spikes usually pendent; staminate 1–3, base cuneate or attenuate. Pistillate scales pale to copper-brown, midvein reaching apex, broad, apex of body retuse, aristate. Perigynia divergent, pale brown, inflated, loosely enclosing achenes, obovoid, dull, apex rounded, obtuse or truncate, glabrous. Achenes constricted on one or both margins or lacking constrictions; style base straight.
Varieties 2 (2 in the flora): North America.
The status of Carex crinita var. porteri (Olney) Fernald [C. porteri Olney], a rare, long-beaked taxon known from two sites in Somerset and Lincoln counties, Maine, is in question and is not treated here. It has not been collected since around the early 1900s.
SELECTED REFERENCE
Bruederle, L. P. and D. E. Fairbrothers. 1986. Allozyme variation in populations of the Carex crinita Lam. complex (Cyperaceae). Syst. Bot. 11: 583–594.
