24. Carex granularis Muhl. ex Willd.

Plants with the rhizomes poorly developed or absent, forming dense tufts or clumps. Flowering stems 15–80 cm long, mostly shorter than the leaves, bluntly trigonous, mostly smooth, brownish tinged at the base. Leaf blades 5–30 cm long, 4–10 mm wide, thin, often arched outward or drooping, sometimes somewhat glaucous. Leaf sheaths shallowly concave and usually extended past the insertion point of the blade at the tip, the ventral side relatively thick, yellowish brown, usually with reddish purple spots or streaks, the ligule longer than wide, the lowermost sheaths brownish tinged at the base. Staminate spike 5–25 mm long, sessile or nearly so, often overtopped by the uppermost pistillate spike and usually also the bracts. Staminate scales 3.8–4.2 mm long, pointed at the tip. Pistillate spikes 2–5, loosely spaced along the stem, 5–30 mm long, 3–6 mm wide, the uppermost sessile or nearly so, the lowermost with long, more or less roughened stalks. Pistillate scales 1.5–2.5 mm long, ovate, mostly sharply pointed at the tip, sometimes with a short awn, white with green midrib and tan to white margins, sometimes tinged reddish brown, usually with reddish purple spots or streaks. Perigynia ascending to spreading, 2–4 mm long, 1.0–2.5 mm wide, oblong-elliptic to ovate or circular-obovate in outline, tapered or abruptly rounded to a minute beak, this straight or somewhat outwardly bent and truncate or nearly so at the tip, the perigynium surface with finely to strongly raised nerves (ribs), olive green to yellowish brown. Fruits 1.7–2.0 mm long, the minute beak straight or bent. 2n=42. April–June.

Common nearly throughout the state except in the northwestern portion, most commonly in the Ozark and Unglaciated Plains Divisions (eastern U.S. west to Minnesota and Texas; Canada). Swamps, bottomland forests, bottomland prairies, moist depressions in upland prairies, calcareous glades, moist crevices of dolomite bluffs, fens, and spring branches; also moist, open ground.

Two varieties of this common species are recognized from Missouri: