Muskingum Sedge

Carex muskingumensis Schw. Ann. Lye. N. Y. 1: 66. 1824
Carex arida Schw. & Torr. Ann. Lye. N. Y. 1: 312. pi. 24, f. 2. 1825. (Based on C. muskingumensis Schw.)
"Carex scoparia Schkuhr" Torr. Ann. Lye. N. Y. 3: 394. 1836. (In part, i. e., as to C. muskingumensis Schw.)
Carex scoparia var. muskingumensis Tuckerm. Enum. Caric. 817. 1843. (Based on C. muskingumensis Schw.)
Thysanocarex muskingumensis Fedde & Schuster, Bot. Jahresb. 41 2 : 12. 1918. (Based on Carex muskingumensis Schw.)
Cespitose, from short-prolonged, stout, blackish, fibrillose rootstocks, the sterile culms numerous, the fertile few, 6-10 dm. high, exceeding the leaves, slender to base but strict, roughened on the angles above, sharply triangular, the sides concave, brownish-tinged below and conspicuously clothed with the dried-up leaves of the previous year, the lower bladeless, the lower nodes exposed; sterile culms very leafy, with many leaves, the blades widely spreading; fertile culms with about 7-12 well-developed leaves, regularly disposed on the lower half, the blades flat, light-green, thin but stiff, noticeably spreading, usually 1.5-2.5 dm. long, 3-4 mm. wide, roughened on the margins and towards the apex, the sheaths rather loose, green-striate ventrally nearly to mouth, very firm and not breaking, deeply concave at mouth, the ligule thickish, as wide as long; blades of sterile shoots wider (4-5 mm.) and semicordate at base; inflorescence consisting of 5-12 approximate, linear-elliptic spikes forming a linearoblong to oblong head 5-8 cm. long, 15-20 mm. thick, the spikes gynaecandrous, straw-colored or brownish, 1.5-2.5 cm. long, 5-7 mm. wide, tapering to the blunt apex, tapering to a subclavate (or sometimes clavate) base, the basal flowers staminate, not conspicuous, rarely numerous and conspicuous, the numerous perigynia erect, closely appressed, with closely appressed beaks; bracts scale-like or the lowest short-prolonged; scales oblong-ovate, acute or obtusish, yellowish-brown with conspicuous hyaline margins and 3-nerved lighter center, rather narrower than and about half the length of the perigynia; perigynia flat and scalelike, somewhat distended over the achene, narrowly oblong-lanceolate, 7-10 mm. long, 2.5 mm. wide, rather strongly wing-margined and serrulate to below middle, somewhat abruptly contracted into a narrower wing-margin extending to base, membranaceous, straw-colored, the margins pellucid above, finely severalto many-nerved both dorsally and ventrally, roundtapering at base, tapering at apex into a beak about one third the length of the whole, flat, serrulate, obliquely cut dorsally, deeply bidentate, slightly reddish-brown-tipped; achenes lenticular, linear-oblong, 2.5 mm. long, 0.75 mm. wide, yellowish-brown, short-stipitate, conspicuously apiculate; style straight, slender, jointed with achene, at length deciduous; stigmas two, slender, reddish-brown, short.
Type locality: "Ohio" ("Tuscarora county, Ohio, near Muskingum river" Schw. & Torr. Ann. Lvc. N. Y. 1: 313).
DiSTBiBtrnoN: Moist woods and thickets, Ohio and Kentucky to Manitoba, Missouri and eastern Kansas. A very well-marked species. (Specimens mamined from Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan. Wise ita, Manitoba, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, eastern ^ i