64. Carex festucacea Schkuhr ex Willd.

Pl. 47 a–f; Map 180

Plants with short, inconspicuous rhizomes, forming tufts or clumps. Vegetative stems shorter than the flowering stems and developing late in the season, the leaves clustered near the tip. Flowering stems 40–100 cm long, much longer than the leaves. Leaves with well-developed blades mostly 3–5 per flowering stem. Leaf blades 2–30 cm long, 1–5 mm wide, light green to green. Leaf sheaths often extended past the insertion point of the leaf blade, the ventral side thin, white, papery, the tip truncate to somewhat convex, the ligule longer than wide and U-shaped. Inflorescence straight or less commonly somewhat nodding, the (3–)5–9 spikes mostly well spaced along the axis. Spikes 6–16 mm long, 5.0–6.5 mm wide, the pistillate portion circular to broadly ovate or obovate in outline, rounded at the tip, with numerous perigynia with appressed to slightly spreading tips, at least the terminal spike tapered to the usually well developed staminate portion, this often inconspicuous in lateral spikes. Scales 2.6–4.0 mm long, the pistillate ones shorter and narrower than, but not hidden by the perigynia, narrowly ovate, sharply pointed, white to light brown, with a green midrib. Perigynia 2.5–3.8 mm long, 1.5–2.2 mm wide, 1.5–2.0 times as long as wide, flat to slightly concave on the ventral side and somewhat convex on the dorsal side, the main body as long as wide or slightly longer than wide, more or less circular, widest at the middle, broadly winged to the base, rounded abruptly to a narrow beak with toothed or roughened margins, the wing ending below the tip of the beak, the ventral and dorsal surfaces lacking papillae, strongly to usually faintly 2–5-nerved on the ventral surface and finely many-nerved on the dorsal surface, green to straw-colored. Fruits 1.0–1.6 mm long, 0.9–1.2 mm wide, oblong-ovate in outline, light brown to dark brown. 2n=68, 70. May–July.

Scattered nearly throughout Missouri (eastern U.S. and adjacent Canada west to Minnesota and Texas). Upland prairies, mostly in moist depressions, bottomland forests, bottoms of ravines in mesic upland forests, banks of streams, and fens; also ditches, wet portions of pastures and fallow fields, and disturbed, moist areas.

This species is characteristic of low swales and depressions in upland prairies of the Unglaciated Plains Division but is widely distributed elsewhere in the state as well. Like C. albolutescens, it has the styles bent or curved near the base (although not as strongly so). For a discussion of the separation of this species from the closely related C. tenera, see the treatment of that species.