Schott's Sedge

Carex schottii may be a member of the C. stricta subgroup; it requires additional study. The bladeless, scabrous, ladder-fibrillose sheaths of proximal leaves and the hypostomic leaves indicate a relationship with the group, but the elongate inflorescence bract, 3–4 staminate spikes, and the broad leaves are unique within the group.

Plants cespitose. Culms acutely angled, 75–150 cm, scabrous. Leaves: basal sheaths red-brown; sheaths of proximal leaves bladeless, scabrous, fronts with brown spots, prominently ladder-fibrillose, apex U-shaped; blades 10–15 mm wide. Proximal bract longer than inflorescence, 10–12 mm wide. Spikes erect; staminate 3–4; pistillate 3–5; the proximal pistillate spike 4–13 cm × 5–7 mm, base attenuate. Pistillate scales red-brown, equaling perigynia, apex acute, awnless. Perigynia ascending, pale brown with red-brown spots throughout, 5–7-veined on each face, somewhat flattened, loosely enclosing achenes, ellipsoid, 3.2–3.5 × 2 mm, dull, apex obtuse or acute, papillose; beak 0.2–0.3 mm. Achenes not constricted, dull.

Calif.

Fruiting Jun.

Wet meadows along streams; 0–2500m.

Carex schottii Dewey, in Torr. Bot. Mex. Bound. Surv. 231. 1859
Carex laciniata Boott, 111. Carex 175, in part, but not as to type. pi. 594. 1867. *' Carex Barbarae Dewey " Parish, Bull. So. Calif. Acad. 4 : 108. pi. 14. 1905. Carex sp. Holm, Am. Jour. Sci. IV. 26 : 485. /. 18-20. 1908.
Cespitose in large clumps, from a stout, short-creeping caudex, sending out long horizontal yellowish-felted stolons, the new shoots at the base of the old, the culms very stout below, exceeding leaves, 1-1.5 m. high, papillate, very sharply triangular, the serrulate angles almost winged, purplish-brown or sometimes yellowish-brown-tinged at base, arising from the center of the conspicuous dried-up leaves of the previous year, the lower leaves of the flowering year very much reduced, leaves of the flowering year with well-developed blades several to a fertile culm, on lower third, little bunched, somewhat septate-nodulose, the blades 5-10 dm. long, 6-12 mm. wide, flat with revolute margins, serrulate on the margins, short-puberulent below towards base, light-green, thin, papillate, the sheaths rough-puberulent and sharply keeled dorsally, concave at mouth, very membranaceous and reddish-brown-dotted ventrally, the lower early breaking and becoming filamentose, the ligule from longer than to much longer than wide; staminate spikes about 3, the upper peduncled, the lower sessile, approximate or somewhat separated, elongate-linear, 8-14 cm. long, 4 mm. wide, the scales oblong or oblanceolate, obtuse, reddish-brown with narrow 3-ribbed lighter center extending nearly or quite to apex, the margins slightly hyaline; bracts ovate, many-nerved, reddish-brown-tinged, about 5 mm. long; pistillate spikes 3, usually staminate at apex, sessile or very nearly so, erect, scattered, elongate-linear, 5-20 cm. long, 5-6 mm. wide, densely flowered or somewhat loosely at base, the perigynia 50-200, appressed-ascending in several to many rows; lowest bract leaf-like, not sheathing nor conspicuously auricled, involute-prolonged, usually exceeding but sometimes shorter than the culm, the upper reduced; scales linear-lanceolate or lanceolate to oblong, acute or obtusish, sometimes minutely rough-mucronate, purplish-black with broad 3-nerved lighter center, much narrower than but usually exceeding perigynia; perigynia much flattened, plano-convex, obovate or oval, 3-3.5 mm. long, 1.75 mm. wide, greenish-strawcolored, puncticulate, 2-ribbed (the marginal) and slenderly but strongly few to severalnerved both dorsally and ventrally, membranaceous, minutely granular, the margins entire or nearly so, tapering to a substipitate base, round-tapering and minutely beaked at apex, the beak 0.25 mm. long with sub-emarginate or emarginate orifice; achenes lenticular, obovate, 1.75-2 mm. long, 1.5 mm. wide, substipitate, rather loosely enveloped in lower two thirds of perigynium, apiculate, jointed with the straight, slender style; stigmas 2, slender.
Type locality: "Banks of rivers, Santa Barbara, California, Parry."
Distribution: Very locally along stream banks in southern California, from Santa Barbara County to San Diego County, and eastward into the San Bernardino mountains below 750 meters; one of the largest species of Carex. (Specimens examined showing range as given.)