Slender Woodland Sedge

Plants densely cespitose. Culms erect or ascending, 7–52 cm × 0.5–1 mm. Leaves: basal sheaths white or light brown; nonbasal sheaths green, 8–37 mm; blades green, 8–44 cm × 0.8–5 mm, shorter than or overtopping culm, 0.5–1.3(–1.8) times as tall as tallest flowering culm; blades of vegetative shoots 1–3.5 times wider than bract blades. Inflorescences: spikes (2–)4 per culm, scattered; peduncles of pistillate spikes 0.5–10.2 cm; of staminate spike 0.4–8.7 cm. Bracts 2.2–11.4 cm × 1–3 mm. Pistillate spikes: proximal usually basal, erect, ascending, or drooping, short to long pedunclulate, 6–18 × 4–5 mm. Staminate spike 1, linear to linear-clavate, 11–24 × (1–)1.2–2.7 mm. Pistillate scales keeled, 1.8–2 × 1–1.2 mm, midribs green, margins hyaline, apex acute, proximal scales of lateral spikes subtending perigyinia. Staminate scales oblong, 2–3.6(–5.5) × 1–1.5 mm, midribs green, margins hyaline, frequently brown tinged, apex acute. Anthers 2–3.3 mm. Perigynia 3–9 per spike, finely veined, obovoid, 2–4.2 × 1.2–1.8 mm; beak tapering. Achenes obovoid, 1.8–2.8 × 1–1.6 mm, sides plane or slightly concave at maturity, tightly fitting perigynia. Style slender, ascending through entire orifice.

Carex digitalis Wilid. Sp. PI. 4: 298. 1805
"Carex oligocarpa Schkuhr" Muhl. Descr. Gram. 242. 1817.
Carex Van-Vleckii, Schw. Ann. Lye. N. Y. 1: 69. 1824. (Type from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.)
Carex oligocarpa var. Van-Vleckii Dewey, Am. Jour. Sci. 10: 280. pi. F, f. 20. 1826. (Based on C.
Van-Vleckii Schw.) "Carex Vleckii Schw." Spreng. Syst. 3: 821. 1826. (Error in name.) Edritria digitalis Raf. Good Book 26. 1840. (Based on Carex digitalis Willd.) Carex podoslachys Steud. Syn. Cyp. 232. 1855. (Type from New Orleans, Louisiana.) Carex digitalis f. podoslachys Kukenth. in Engler, Pflanzenreich 4 2 °: 528. 1909. (Based on C.
podostachys Steud.)
Densely cespitose, the rootstocks very short, the culms central and lateral, triangular, not winged, erect but rather weak, 1-5 dm. high, hispidulous, usually surpassed by the bracts or leaves, light-brownish-tinged at base; sterile shoots elongate, conspicuous; leaves of the fertile and sterile culms about equally developed, the blades erect, flat, thin, green, not glaucous, long-tapering, typically 1-2 dm. long, 2.5-5 mm. wide, smooth below, roughened on the margins and hispidulous on the veins towards the apex above, the midvein prominent on the lower surface and the two mid-lateral veins on the upper; sheaths 1.5-4 cm. long, tight, hyaline ventrally, the basal at least cinnamon-brown-tinged and red-dotted, the ligule long and conspicuous; staminate spike linear, from shortto long-peduncled, 1-2 cm. long, 2-3 mm. wide, the peduncle smooth, the scales obovate, acute, whitish-hyaline with 3 -nerved green center, reddishor yellowish-bro wntinged ; pistillate spikes 2-5, often staminate at apex, the basal scales not empty, linear, 0.5-3 cm. long, 3-4 mm. wide, very widely separated, the lower often nearly basal, varying from borne on long, very slender, often recurving, nearly smooth peduncles sometimes 8 cm. long (the lower), to erect and slightly exsert-peduncled (the upper), loosely and alternately 3-12-flowered, the perigynia ascending; bracts leaflet-like, long-sheathing, the sheaths green, slightly scabrous, the margins entire, the upper bracts exceeding the culms; scales small, ovate, sharply keeled, spreading, acute or the lower cuspidate, half the length of the perigynia, and much narrower, white-hyaline, with green midrib and 3-nerved center, slightly cinnamon-brown-tinged ; perigynia obovoid, sharply triangular, not at all inflated, hispidulous, membranaceous, deep-green, finely many-nerved, usually 2.5-3 mm. long, but sometimes even 4 mm. long, 1.5 mm. wide, substipitate, short-tapering at the base, tapering at the essentially beakless apex into a short, erect or slightly bent point with entire hyaline orifice; achenes broadly obovoid, triangular with concave sides, closely filling the perigynium, 2 mm. long, 1.5 mm. wide, substipitate, short-apiculate, jointed with the very short, slender style; stigmas three, slender, 1.5 mm. long, reddish-brown, long-persistent.
Type locality: "Habitat in Pennsylvania."
Distribution: Dry woods and thickets, Maine and Southern Ontario to Minnesota, and southward to Florida and Texas. (Specimens examined from Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, District of Columbia, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Ontario, Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky, Indiana, Wisconsin, Missouri, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas.)

Carex digitalis is a tussock-forming species of perennial sedge in the family Cyperaceae. It is native to south eastern parts of Canada as well as central and eastern parts of the United States.