Bear Sedge

Plants densely cespitose; rhizomes short. Culms erect, slender, 15–80 cm, very rough distally. Leaves: sheaths pale to gray-brown abaxially, inner band thin, hyaline, conspicuously purplish dotted, concave at summit; ligules acute, longer than wide; blades pale to gray-green, flat, 15–50 cm × 2–4 mm, shorter than to exceeding culms. Inflorescences erect, ovoid-oblong, 1.5–4 cm × 7–12 mm; proximal bracts (sometimes also 2d) bristlelike-prolonged, from short to clearly exceeding spikes, distal bracts usually scalelike. Spikes 5–15, gynecandrous, proximal often slightly separate, distal closely approximate (sometimes hardly recognizable), containing 10–20 perigynia, sessile, oblong, 5–10 × 4–6 mm. Pistillate scales hyaline with green center, often brown tinged, ovate, shorter than perigynia, apex obtuse to short-cuspidate. Perigynia spreading-ascending, greenish, often brown in age, several-veined, ovate, widest near base, 2–3(–3.5) × 1.25–1.5 mm, minutely papillose (membranous); beak abaxial suture conspicuous, 0.75–1.25 mm, margin serrulate. Achenes pale brown, ovate, 1.25–1.5 1 mm, dull to slightly glossy. 2n = 60.

Alta., B.C., Man., N.B., Ont., Que., Yukon; Calif., Idaho, Maine, Mass., Mich., Minn., Mont., N.H., N.Y., Oreg., Vt., Wash., Wis.

Fruiting Jun–Sep.

Swampy (coniferous) woods and thickets, wet meadows; 0–2000m.

Carex canescens Linnaeus var. oregana L. H. Bailey; C. canescens var. polystachya Boott; C. heleonastes Linnaeus f. var. scabriuscula Kükenthal; C. kunzei Olney

Carex arcta Boott, 111. Carex 155. pi. I"T. 1867
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Densely cespitose. the root I iiort, black, fibrillo e, tbi Im high. sharply triangular with concave sides, slender but strict, very rough on the angles above, usually strongly exceeded by the long leaves, light-brown at base and conspicuously clothed with the dried-up leaves of the previous year; leaves with well-developed blades 5-10 to a fertile culm, bunched towards the base, the blades 1.5-4 dm. long, 2-4 mm. wide, light-green, flat, not stiff, very rough towards the long-attenuate apex, the sheaths hyaline and very thin ventrally, not prolonged beyond base of blade, the ligule about as long as wide, the lower sheaths conspicuously purplish-dotted ventrally and loose; inflorescence consisting of 5-15 gynaecandrous, greenish or brownish-yellow-tinged spikes, closely aggregated into an ovoidoblong or oblong head 1.5-3 cm. long, 7-12 mm. thick, the upper spikes hardly recognizable, the lower well differentiated and often slightly separated, oblong, 5-10 mm. long, 4-6 mm. wide, obtuse at both ends, the staminate basal flowers very inconspicuous, the 10-20 perigynia spreading-ascending, the beaks not very conspicuous; lower one or two bracts developed and from much shorter than to much longer than the head; upper bracts scale-like, cuspidatepointed ; scales ovate, short-cuspidate to obtusish, hyaline with a sharp green center, the midvein usually more or less strongly brownish-tinged, about width of but rather shorter than perigynia; perigynia plano-convex, ovate, 2-3 mm. long, 1.1-1.5 mm. wide, greenish-strawcolored or brownish at maturity, thickish, membranaceous, densely white-punctate, widest near the broad truncate base, wingless but slightly sharp-edged, strongly several-nerved dorsally, more obscurely several-nerved ventrally, short-stipitate, spongy at base, gradually tapering into a medium-sized (0.75 mm. long) flat beak, strongly serrulate, obliquely cut dorsally, bidentate, the orifice reddish-brown-tinged ; achenes lenticular, closely enveloped, ovate, 1.5 mm. long, 0.8 mm. wide, substipitate, short-apiculate, brownish; style slender, jointed with achene, at length deciduous; stigmas two, dark-reddish-brown, slender, short.
Type locality (of C. canescens var. polystachya Boott, on which C. arcta is based): "In America boreali, Canada. Lake Superior, Rainy Lake. Lake of the Woods."
Distribution: Swampy woods and thickets, Quebec and New Brunswick to British Columbia, and southward to Massachusetts, New York, Minnesota, and extreme northern California. (Specimens examined from New Brunswick, Quebec, Maine, New Hampshire. Vermont, New York, Ontario. Michigan, Wisconsin. Minnesota, Montana, Alberta. Idaho, California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia.)

Carex arcta is a species of sedge known by the common name northern cluster sedge. It is native to northern North America including most of Canada and northern parts of the United States. It grows in wet areas, especially in coniferous forests. This sedge produces dense clumps of erect stems up to about 80 centimetres (31 in) high. The leaves are pale green to grayish, flat, and have reddish or purple-dotted sheaths at the base, and they are sometimes longer than the stems. The inflorescence is a dense, oblong cluster of up to 15 spikes of pointed flowers, each cluster up to 3–4 cm (1.2–1.6 in) long and each individual spike up to 1 cm (0.39 in) long. The fruit is covered in a sac called a perigynium which is greenish and veined with a reddish tip.