32. Carex hitchcockiana Dewey

Pl. 37 j–n; Map 145

Plants without noticeable rhizomes, forming dense tufts, green to dark green. Flowering stems 15–60 cm long, ascending to spreading, white to brown at the base. Leaf blades 1–35 cm long, 2.5–7.0 mm wide, flat. Leaf sheaths sparsely to usually densely short-hairy, the tip more or less truncate, the lowermost, nearly bladeless sheaths straw-colored to brownish tinged. Spikes 3–5 per stem, the bracts of the uppermost pistillate spikes usually longer than the inflorescence. Staminate spike 10–30 mm long, short- to more commonly long-stalked, the stalk smooth. Staminate scales 5–7 mm long, narrowly oblong, white with green midrib. Pistillate spikes 5–25 mm long, 4–7 mm wide, short- to long-stalked, the stalks smooth, ascending, with 2–7 loosely spaced to slightly overlapping perigynia in 2 ranks on opposite sides of the axis. Pistillate scales 4.5–9.0 mm long, the lowermost ones with the bodies shorter than to about as long as the associated perigynia, ovate to broadly ovate, the tip pointed and with a long, rough-margined awn, white with green midrib. Perigynia 4.5–6.0 mm long, ascending, obovate, the tip abruptly tapered to the beak, tapered to a short, stalklike base, trigonous in cross-section. Fruits 3.2–4.0 mm long, the minute beak usually sharply bent. 2n=54. May–June.

Widely scattered in the state, but apparently absent from the Mississippi Lowlands and Unglaciated Plains Divisions (eastern U.S. and adjacent Canada west to Minnesota and Oklahoma). Mesic upland forests, frequently near bases of rich, wooded slopes in ravines and along bases of bluffs, frequently on calcareous substrates.