Home Flora of Missouri
Home
Name Search
Families
Volumes
Carex crus-corvi Shuttlew. ex Kuntze Search in The Plant ListSearch in IPNISearch in Australian Plant Name IndexSearch in NYBG Virtual HerbariumSearch in Muséum national d'Histoire naturelleSearch in Type Specimen Register of the U.S. National HerbariumSearch in Virtual Herbaria AustriaSearch in JSTOR Plant ScienceSearch in SEINetSearch in African Plants Database at Geneva Botanical GardenAfrican Plants, Senckenberg Photo GallerySearch in Flora do Brasil 2020Search in Reflora - Virtual HerbariumSearch in Living Collections Decrease font Increase font Restore font
 

Published In: Supplemente zu Schkuhr's Riedgräsern 128. 1844. (Dec 1844) (Suppl. Riedgräs.) Name publication detail
 

Project Name Data (Last Modified On 9/1/2009)
Acceptance : Accepted
Project Data     (Last Modified On 7/9/2009)
Status: Native

 

Export To PDF Export To Word

125. Carex crus-corvi Shuttlew. ex Kunze

Pl. 65 a–e; Map 241

Flowering stems 30–100 cm long, sharply trigonous and often narrowly winged, soft and easily crushed, often flattening upon drying. Leaf blades 4–70 cm long, 5–10 mm wide, grayish green to green, sometimes glaucous. Leaf sheaths truncate to shallowly concave at the tip, the dorsal side white with green veins or mottled green and white, also with scattered, short, dark green or brown cross-lines (these actually darkened cross-walls of the cells, clearly visible with magnification), the ventral side thin, papery, white to tan with scattered red dots, only rarely cross-wrinkled, often breaking up at maturity, the ligule wider than long and U-shaped. Inflorescences compound with relatively elongate basal branches, with numerous spikes. Pistillate scales 3–4 mm long, white to tan with a green or straw-colored midrib. Perigynia 6–8 mm long, 1.0–2.2 mm wide, narrowly triangular in outline, green, the tip long-tapered to a beak 2–3 times as long as the main body, the base truncate, abruptly swollen with spongy tissue into a yellow to brown, disklike structure, the ventral surface nerveless or more commonly with 5–7 faint nerves, the dorsal surface with 10–12 strong nerves. Fruits 1.8–2.5 mm long. 2n=52. May–July.

Widely scattered in the state, mostly in the floodplains of big rivers and their tributaries, apparently absent from northwestern Missouri and most of the Ozark Division (Michigan to Georgia west to Wisconsin and Texas; disjunct farther east; Canada). Swamps, sloughs, bottomland forests, bottomland prairies, and banks of rivers and streams; also ditches; sometimes emergent aquatics.

The long perigynium beaks give this species a bristly appearance. The coarse stems; large, compound inflorescences with elongate basal branches; and long perigynia make it relatively easy to recognize.

 


 

 
 
© 2024 Missouri Botanical Garden - 4344 Shaw Boulevard - Saint Louis, Missouri 63110