119. Carex comosa Boott

Pl. 64 a–d; Map 235

Plants with short rhizomes, forming large clumps. Flowering stems 40–150 cm long, sharply trigonous and sometimes with narrow wings, light brown at the base. Leaves all with well-developed blades. Leaf blades 20–50 cm long, 6–16 mm wide, light green to yellowish green. Leaf sheaths deeply concave at the tip, the ligule longer than wide and V-shaped. Terminal spike 30–70 mm long, entirely staminate or less commonly with a few perigynia toward the tip or the base, the staminate scales 4–9 mm long, oblanceolate to linear with hairy margins, the tip tapered to a noticeable awn with roughened or toothed margins, reddish brown with a green or straw-colored midrib. Lateral spikes 2–7, 15–75 mm long, 12–17 mm wide, all pistillate, narrowly oblong in outline and rounded at both ends, the lowermost spikes with long, slender stalks, drooping or nodding, the lowermost bract lacking a sheath or nearly so. Pistillate scales 3–6 mm long, linear to ovate-triangular, the tip tapered to a noticeable awn with roughened or toothed margins, reddish brown with a green or straw-colored midrib. Perigynia 5–7 mm long, 1.5–2.0 mm wide, mostly reflexed at maturity, narrowly ovate in outline, tapered gradually to a beak with spreading teeth 1.2–2.2 mm long, little-inflated and bluntly trigonous, the surface leathery, with 12–20 nerves, light green to yellowish green. Styles straight or nearly so. Fruits with the main body 1.7–2.0 mm long, elliptic-obovate in outline, brown. 2n=64. June–August.

Scattered in the southeastern quarter of the state in the Ozark and Mississippi Lowlands Divisions, with disjunct localities farther north and west in Clark, Platte, and St. Louis Counties (northeastern U.S. west to Minnesota, Nebraska, and Louisiana; also Washington to California, Idaho; Canada, Mexico). Swamps, bottomland forests, sloughs, margins of ponds, lakes, and sinkhole ponds, and marshes, often emergent aquatics.

This large sedge, with its distinctive “bottlebrush” spikes, occurs most commonly along the margins of sinkhole ponds, where it typically forms large hummocks. It is an indicator species for good-quality sinkhole pond communities in the Ozarks. At one site in Mississippi County, it is rooted on logs floating in a shallow inlet of an open slough.