Hairy Sedge

Foodplant / saprobe
superficial pseudothecium of Acanthophiobolus helicosporus is saprobic on dead leaf of Carex hirta
Remarks: season: 5-10

In Great Britain and/or Ireland:
Foodplant / saprobe
sporodochium of Arthrinium dematiaceous anamorph of Arthrinium curvatum var. minus is saprobic on dead, often dry, bleached leaf of Carex hirta
Remarks: season: 2-11

Foodplant / saprobe
sporodochium of Arthrinium dematiaceous anamorph of Arthrinium sporophleum is saprobic on newly dead leaf of Carex hirta
Remarks: season: 3-4

Foodplant / saprobe
sessile apothecium of Clavidisculum caricis is saprobic on dead leaf base of Carex hirta
Remarks: season: 5-8

Foodplant / saprobe
colony of Periconia dematiaceous anamorph of Periconia funerea is saprobic on dead leaf of Carex hirta

Foodplant / saprobe
immersed pseudothecium of Phaeosphaeria caricicola is saprobic on dead leaf of Carex hirta

Foodplant / parasite
telium of Puccinia urticata var. urticae-hirtae parasitises live Carex hirta

Foodplant / saprobe
pycnidium of Stagonospora coelomycetous anamorph of Stagonospora vitensis is saprobic on dead sheath of Carex hirta
Remarks: season: 5-8

Foodplant / saprobe
immersed apothecium of Stictis elongatispora is saprobic on dead leaf of Carex hirta
Remarks: season: 5-8

Carex hirta was first collected in North America in 1877 in Amherst, Massachusetts, and in 1878 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Completely glabrous forms, known from Eurasia, have not yet been found in North America.

Culms trigonous in cross section, (10–)20–90 cm. Leaves: basal sheaths brown, reddish purple tinged, inner bands slightly fibrillose with age; sheaths spreading pubescent; ligules 2–8(–10.5) mm; blades spreading, 2.5–8 mm wide, pubescent, not papillose abaxially. Inflorescences 8–50 cm; spikes erect or ascending; proximal (1–)2–3 spikes pistillate; terminal 1–3 spikes staminate. Pistillate scales ovate, apex acute to acuminate, scabrous-awned, sparsely spreading-pubescent or glabrous. Staminate scales ovate, apex obtuse to acuminate, shortly scabrous-awned except sometimes the proximal, sparsely to densely spreading-white-pubescent. Perigynia 12–20-veined, 4.8–7.8 × 1.7–2.5 mm, ± densely spreading-pubescent; beak 1.5–2.7 mm, spreading-pubescent, teeth spreading, 0.8–1.7 mm. 2n = 112–114.

introduced; N.S., Ont., P.E.I., Que.; Conn., Maine, Md., Mass., Mich., N.J., N.Y., Pa., Wis.; Eurasia; introduced New Zealand.

Fruiting Jun–Aug.

Dry to wet fields, ditches, roadsides, railroad embankments, disturbed stream banks, lakeshores, and open forests; 0–600m.

Carex hirta L. Sp. Pl. 975. 1753
Carex hirta * hirtaeformis Pers. Syn. Pl. 2: 547. 1807. (Type European; not definitely given.)
Carex villosa Stokes, Bot. Mat. Med. 4: 346. 1812. (Type from England.)
Carex hirta var. sublaevis Hornem. Dansk Oecon. Pl. ed. 3. 1: 953. Je 1821 ; Fl. Dan. 29: 7. pl. 1711.
S 1821. (Type from Denmark.) Trasus hirtus S. F. Gray, Nat. Arr. Brit. Pl. 2: 58. 1821. (Based on Carex hirta L.) Carex hirta var. hirtaeformis Reichenb. in Mossier, Handb. ed. 2. 1649. 1829. (Based on C. hirta *
hirtaeformis Pers.) Carex hirta var. humilis Peterm. Fl. Lips. 62. 1838. (Type from Leipzig, Germany.) Carex hirta var. vulgaris Peterm. Anal. Pfl. 516. 1846. (Based on C. hirta L.) Carex hirta var. major Peterm. Anal. Pfl. 516. 1846. (Type from Leipzig, Germany.) Carex hirta var. villosa Peterm. Anal. Pfl. 516. 1846. (Type from Leipzig, Germany.) Carex hirta var. glabrata Peterm. Anal. Pfl. 516. 1846. (Based on C. hirta * hirtaeformis Pers.) Carex hirta var. androgyna Peterm. Anal. Pfl. 517. 1846. (Type from Leipzig, Germany.) Carex hirta a vera Neilr. Fl. Nieder-Oesterr. 122. 1859. (Based on C. hirta L.) Carex hirta var. pseudo-hirta Schur, Enum. Pl. Transsilv. 711. 1866. (Type from Transsylvania.) Carex hirta a pilosa Celak. Prodr. Fl. Bohm. 74. 1867. (Type from Bohemia.) Carex hirta /S subglabra Celak. Prodr. Fl. Bohm. 74. 1867. (Type from Bohemia.) Carex hirta var. spinosa Mortensen, Bot. Tidssk. 5: 94. 1872. (Type from southern Sweden.) Carex hirta var. glabrescens St. -Lag. in Cariot, Etude Fl. ed. 8. 2: 871. 1889. (Type from France.) Carex hirta var. hirtaeformis f. subhirtaeformis Kneucker, Allg. Bot. Zeits. 4: 165. 1898. (Type from
Baden, Germany.) Carex hirta f. hirtiformis Asch. & Graebn. Syn. Mitteleur. Fl. 2-: 223. 1903. (Based on C. hirta *
hirtaeformis Pers.) Carex hirta f. major Asch. & Graebn. Syn. Mitteleur. Fl. 2- 223. 1903. (Based on C. hirta var.
major Peterm.) Carex hirta f. paludosa A. Winkler; Asch. & Graebn. Syn. Mitteleur. Fl. 2=: 223. 1903. (Type from
central Europe.) Carex hirta var. aquatica Waisb. Magyar Bot. Lap. 4: 76. 1905. (Type from Hungary.) Carex hirta f. humilis "Peterm." Kiikenth. in Engler, Pflanzenreich 4 2 °: 751. 1909. (Based on C
hirta var. humilis Peterm.) Carex hirta f. latifolia Waisb.; Kiikenth. in Engler, Pflanzenreich 4 2 °: 751. 1909. (Type from
Hungary.) Carex hirta f. villosa "Peterm." Kiikenth. in Engler, Pflanzenreich 4 20 : 751. 1909. (Based on C.
hirta var. villosa Peterm.) Carex hirta f. subhirtaeformis "Kneucker " Kiikenth. in Engler, Pflanzenreich 4 20 : 751. 1909. (Based
on C. hirta var. hirtaefortnis f. subhirtaeformis Kneucker.) Carex hirta f. pseudo-hirta "Schur" Kiikenth. in Engler, Pflanzenreich 4 20 : 751. 1909. (Based on
C. hirta var. pseudo-hirta Schur.) Carex hirta f. spinosa "Mortensen" Kiikenth. in Engler, Pflanzenreich 4 2C : 751. 1909. (Based on
C. hirta var. spinosa Mortensen.)
Loosely cespitose and long-stoloniferous, the stolons stout, tough, horizontal, scaly, the culms 2-10 dm. high, erect, rather slender, obtusely triangular, aphyllopodic, exceeding the leaves, smooth or nearly so, brownish or purplish at base, the basal sheaths breaking and becoming somewhat filamentose, the sterile shoots elongate, the leaves clustered at apex; leaves (not bracts) with well-developed blades 2-5 to a fertile culm, soft-hairy or rarely glabrate, obscurely more or less septate-nodulose, the lower clustered, the upper scattered, the blades thin, light-green, flat, 5-25 cm. long, 2-6 mm. wide, strongly roughened towards the long-attenuate apex, the sheaths tight, white-pilose and concave at mouth, the ligule as long as wide ; staminate spikes 1-3, the upper slenderly long-peduncled with a scale-like bract at base, linear-oblong, 1.5-3 cm. long, 2.5-3.5 mm. wide, the scales oblong-obovate, truncate or obtuse, often awned cuspidate or mucronate, strongly long-ciliate and white-pilose, purplish-brown or becoming tawny-red with green 3-nerved center and hyaline margins; pistillate spikes 2 or 3, very widely separated, the lowest often nearly basal, erect, short-exsert-peduncled (the peduncles slender, hairy), oblong, 1.5-5 cm. long, 6-9 mm. wide, closely flowered above or more loosely at base and containing 10-35 ascending perigynia in several rows; bracts leaf-like, the lowest strongly sheathing, the upper short-sheathing, the uppermost usually exceeding culm ; scales lanceolateovate, white-hairy and long-ciliate, long-acuminate, mucronate, or awned, narrower than and (excluding awn) from half to two thirds the length of the perigynia, purplish-brown, with green 3-nerved center and hyaline margins; perigynia ovoid-lanceolate, suborbicular in crosssection, somewhat inflated, 5-9 mm. long, 2.5 mm. wide, usually strongly white-pubescent, submembranaceous, greenish-straw-colored or light-brownish, strongly 15-20-ribbed, rounded at base, very short-stipitate, tapering at apex into a strongly bidentate beak, 1.5-2.5 mm. long, the teeth slender, 0.75-1 mm. long, hispidulous within and without; achenes obovoid-oval, loosely enveloped, 3 mm. long, 1.75 mm. wide, triangular with obtuse angles and slightly concave sides, yellowish, substipitate, tapering at apex, slender-apiculate and jointed with the nearly straight, slender, deciduous style; stigmas 3, slender, blackish.
Type locality: "Habitat in Europae sabulosis."
Distribution: Dry fields and waste places, Prince Edward Island to eastern New York, Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia; also Oregon. Very locally naturalized or adventive from Europe, erroneously recorded from Tennessee. (Specimens examined from Prince Edward Island, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, District of Columbia, Oregon.)

Carex hirta, the hairy sedge or hammer sedge, is a species of sedge native across Europe. It has characteristic hairy leaves and inflorescences, and is the type species of the genus Carex.