4a. var. floridana (Schwein.) Kük.

C. floridana Schwein.

Plants with long-creeping rhizomes, forming loose clumps of tufts. Pistillate spikes with the scales usually green at maturity, only faintly, if at all, tinged with red, the margins broad and white. March–May.

Uncommon, known thus far only from Butler, Douglas, and Stoddard Counties (southeastern U.S. west to Texas and Missouri, mostly along the Gulf Coastal Plain). Mesic upland forests, often on rocky slopes, on sandstone, cherty dolomite, and coarse-sandy substrates.

Some botanists (e.g., Rettig, 1988) regard this taxon as a distinct species, based upon the creeping rhizomes, green pistillate scales, mostly Coastal Plain distribution, and occurrence in somewhat more mesic habitats than var. nigromarginata. However, in the sandy ravines of Crowley’s Ridge, both taxa sometimes grow in close proximity. In these mixed populations, plants exhibit considerable variation in growth form, making distinctions between the two taxa somewhat more problematic than elsewhere in the species’ range.