Hairy Sedge

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.)