118. Carex hirtifolia Mack.

Pl. 63 i–l; Map 234

Plants monoecious, with short, slender rhizomes, forming loose tufts or clumps. Vegetative stems well developed, leafy. Flowering stems 20–60 cm long, erect or arched outward, sharply trigonous, hairy on the sides and roughened on the angles near the tip. Leaves basal and on the basal 1/3 of the stems, mostly shorter than the stems, green to dark green, soft-hairy, the lowermost reduced to nearly bladeless sheaths. Leaf blades 1–35 cm long, 3–10 mm wide, flat. Leaf sheaths with the tip concave, the ventral surface thin, papery, and tinged orangish brown, the ligule longer than wide and V-shaped, the lowermost sheath bases reddish brown. Spikes 3–5 per stem, the bracts leaflike, mostly shorter than the inflorescence, lacking a sheath or nearly so. Terminal spike staminate, 8–20 mm long, erect, sessile or short-stalked, linear to narrowly lanceolate in outline, the staminate scales 3.5–6.0 mm long, obovate, the tip mostly rounded and often short-awned, white with a green midrib. Lateral spikes 2–4, pistillate, densely to loosely spaced near the tip of the axis, sessile or short-stalked, erect to ascending, 5–17 mm long, 4–6 mm wide, broadly lanceolate to narrowly oblong in outline, with 10–25 densely spaced perigynia, the pistillate scales 3–5 mm long, broadly obovate to nearly circular in outline, rounded or bluntly pointed at the tip, hairy along the margin, and usually short-awned, white with a green midrib. Perigynia 3.5–5.0 mm long, nerveless, obovate in outline, sharply trigonous, narrowed to a short, stalklike base, tapered abruptly to a short beak 0.7–1.2 mm long at the tip, green, hairy. Styles withering during fruit development, jointed to the main body of the fruit, which is very short-beaked at maturity. Stigmas 3. Fruits 2.5–2.8 mm long, obovate in outline, sharply trigonous with flat to somewhat concave sides, brown. 2n=ca. 50. April–June.

Scattered in the Glaciated Plains and in the eastern half of the Ozark and Ozark Border Divisions (northeastern U.S. and adjacent Canada west to Wisconsin and Missouri). Bottomland forests and mesic upland forests, particularly on rich, wooded, lower slopes and bottoms of ravines.