50. Carex intumescens Rudge (bladder sedge)

Pl. 43 a–d; Map 166

C. intumescens var. fernaldii L.H. Bailey

Plants lacking rhizomes, forming dense clumps. Vegetative stems generally well developed, leafy. Flowering stems 1 to few per tuft, 15–90 cm long, somewhat roughened on the angles near the tip, reddish purple at the base. Leaf blades 8–30 cm long, 3–9 mm wide, dull green. Leaf sheaths concave at the tip, the ligule wider than long and U-shaped, the uppermost leaf (not a bract subtending a spike) with the sheath lacking or up to 1.5 cm long. Staminate spike 10–50 mm long, 1–3 mm wide, nearly sessile to long-stalked, the stalk shorter than to less commonly longer than the uppermost pistillate spike. Staminate scales 6–16 mm long, lanceolate to narrowly oblong-ovate, rounded or short-awned at the tip, tan to light orangish brown, with a green midrib and lighter margins. Pistillate spikes 1–4, 10–27 mm long, 10–28 mm wide, ovate to circular or obovate in outline, with 1–12 loosely clustered perigynia ascending to spreading. Pistillate scales 4.0–9.5 mm long, narrowly ovate to ovate, rounded or tapered to a point or short awn at the tip, straw-colored to nearly white, with a green midrib and white margins. Perigynia 10–17 mm long, ovate to narrowly ovate in outline, green, shiny, glabrous, the tip with the beak 2.0–4.2 mm long, the base rounded. Styles usually contorted near the base. Fruits with the main body 3.5–5.7 mm long, longer than wide, elliptic to obovate in outline, widest at or above the middle, the angles not thickened, the sides flat to slightly convex. 2n=48. April–July.

Uncommon in the Mississippi Lowlands Division of southeastern Missouri (eastern U.S. west to Wisconsin and Texas; Canada). Swamps, bottomland forests, and margins of sinkhole ponds.

As in C. grayi, although the styles are not jointed to the fruits in this species, they tend to wither at maturity and are darker than the rest of the fruit.