58. Carex alata Torr.

Pl. 45 a–f; Map 174

Plants with short, inconspicuous rhizomes, forming mostly large, dense clumps. Vegetative stems much shorter than the flowering stems, with relatively few leaves. Flowering stems 30–120 cm long, mostly longer than the leaves. Leaves with well-developed blades mostly 3–7 per flowering stem. Leaf blades 2–50 cm long, 2.5–6.0 mm wide, green to dark green. Leaf sheaths extended past the insertion point of the leaf blade, the ventral side green nearly to the tip, which is concave and somewhat thickened, the ligule longer than wide and U- or V-shaped. Inflorescence straight or nearly so, the 4–8 spikes densely overlapping along the axis. Spikes 8–15 mm long, 6–12 mm wide, the pistillate portion circular to broadly ovate, rounded at the tip, with numerous perigynia with appressed or slightly spreading tips, the staminate portion usually inconspicuous. Scales 2.0–5.4 mm long, shorter and narrower than the perigynia, lanceolate to narrowly ovate, tapered to a conspicuous, slender, sharp point or awn with rough margins at the tip, white with a green midrib. Perigynia 3.7–5.0 mm long, 2.5–4.0 mm wide, 1.2–1.7 times as long as wide, flat or nearly so on both sides (slightly swollen over the fruit dorsally), the main body somewhat longer than wide, broadly obovate to nearly circular in outline, widest at or more commonly above the middle, broadly winged to the base, rounded abruptly to a narrow beak with toothed or roughened margins, the wing ending at or below the tip of the beak, the ventral and dorsal surfaces lacking papillae, finely many-nerved, pale green to tan or yellowish brown. Fruits 1.5–2.0 mm long, 0.9–1.3 mm wide, oblong-ovate in outline rounded to a short, stalklike base, yellowish brown. 2n=74. April–June.

Scattered in the Ozark and Mississippi Lowlands Divisions (eastern U.S. and adjacent Canada west to Illinois and Texas, most commonly along the Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plains). Sinkhole ponds, swamps, bottomland forests, sloughs; also ditches, wet pastures, and fallow fields; often emergent aquatics.

Carex alata is an indicator of good-quality sinkhole pond communities in the Ozarks, in which it frequently forms large hummocks. The species is encountered less commonly in the Mississippi Lowlands. An unusual feature of this species within section Ovales is that the fruits are positioned with the base about 0.5 mm above the base of the perigynium, instead of at the base of the perigynium. Depauperate specimens might be mistaken for C. straminea, which has similar pistillate scales, but that species differs in its usually nodding inflorescences and narrower fruits.