Northwestern Showy Sedge

Some specimens of Carex spectabilis in Glacier County, Montana, show transitions to C. paysonis.

Culms 25–50 cm. Leaves basal and cauline; proximal leaves reduced to sheaths; distal leaves with blades 2–5 mm wide. Inflorescences: spikes separate, oblong or elongate, 8–20 × 3.5–5 mm; lateral spikes 2–4(–9); proximal spikes spreading or pendent, long-pedunculate; distal spikes approximate, erect or spreading, short-pedunculate. Pistillate scales brown or black, midvein prominent, lighter colored than body, conspicuous, lanceolate, shorter or longer than and as broad as perigynia, apex acute or mucronate. Perigynia yellow-green, green, or purple-black, veined or veinless, ovate, 3.5–5 × 1.75–2 mm, smooth; beak 0.4–0.5 mm, entire or deeply bidentate, smooth.

Alta., B.C., Yukon; Alaska, Calif., Idaho, Mont., Oreg., Utah, Wash., Wyo.

Fruiting Jul–Sep.

Moist subalpine and alpine meadows; 300–3500m.

Carex invisa L. H. Bailey; C. nigella Boott; C. spectabilis var. superba T. Holm; C. tolmiei Boott; C. tolmiei var. invisa (L. H. Bailey) Kükenthal

Carex spectabilis Dewey, Am. Jour. Sci 29: 248. pi. X,f. 76. 1836.
Carex nigella Boott, in Hook, Fl. Bor. Am. 2: 225. 1839. (Type from Columbia River.)
"Carex podocarpa R. Br." W. Boott, in S. Wats. Bot. Calif. 2: 245. 1880.
Carex invisa L. H. Bailey, Proc. Am. Acad. 22: 82. 1886. (Type from Summit Camp, California.)
Carex Tolmiei var. nigella L. H. Bailey, Mem. Torrey Club 1: 47. 1889. (Based on C. nigella
Boott.) 'Carex Tolmiei var. invisa Kukenth. in Engler, Pflanzenreich 4 2 °: 412. 1909. (Based on C. invisa
L. H. Bailey.) "Carex venustula Holm" Mackenzie, in Rydb. Fl. Rocky Mts. 136. 1917.
Carex spectabilis f. chrysanlha Holm, Am. Jour. Sci. IV. 49: 202. 1920. (Type from Washington.) Carex spectabilis f. alpina Holm, Am. Jour. Sci. IV. 49: 202. 1920. (Type from Washington.) Carex spectabilis var. superba Holm, Am. Jour. Sci. IV. 49: 202. 1920. (Type from Alberta.) Carex spectabilis var. elegantula Holm, Am. Jour. Sci. IV. 49: 202. 1920. (Type from British
Columbia.) Carex spectabilis var. gelida Holm, Am. Jour. Sci. IV. 49: 202. 1920. (Type from Alberta.)
Loosely cespitose, the clumps medium-sized from densely matted, stout, tough, strongly fibrous, short-branching rootstalks, the culms 2.5-9 dm. high, central, slender, erect, sharply triangular, smooth or slightly roughened above, papillose, more or less strongly exceeding the leaves, purplish-tinged at base, arising from the center of the tuft of dried-up leaves of the previous year, the lower culm-leaves very much reduced; sterile shoots aphyllopodic; leaves with well-developed blades 2-5 to a fertile culm, on the lower third or half, strongly separate, the blades flat with slightly revolute margins, usually 0.5-1.5 dm. long, 2-5 mm. wide, lightgreen, firm, papillose, short-tapering, somewhat roughened towards the apex, the sheaths very long, very fragile and more or less yellowish-brown-tinged and purplish-dotted ventrally, prolonged at mouth beyond base of blade, the ligule wider than long; sterile-culm blades much longer, 1.5-4 dm. long, and narrower, long-attenuate; staminate spike solitary or occasionally two, erect or sometimes drooping, the upper more or less peduncled, the second sessile, linearoblong, 8-20 mm. long, 4-6 mm. wide, the scales oblong-obovate, blackish with conspicuous thick light-colored midrib more or less excurrent as a short cusp; pistillate spikes 2-4, more or less strongly separate, erect, the upper short-peduncled or nearly sessile, the lower more strongly peduncled, oblong or linear-oblong, 1-3 cm. long, 3.5-5 mm. wide, closely flowered, but little attenuate. at base, containing 15-30 appressed perigynia in several rows; lower bract leafletlike, shorter than or exceeding inflorescence, sheathless; upper bracts reduced, the auricles often dark-tinged ; scales oblong-ovate, purplish-black with the margins slightly hyaline and with conspicuous, thick, whitish midvein prominent to apex and usually excurrent as a very short cusp, usually narrower and slightly shorter than the perigynia; perigynia oblong-elliptic or oblong-ovate, much flattened, 4-5 mm. long, 1.75-2 mm. wide, 2-ribbed (the marginal), otherwise very obscurely nerved, membranaceous, granular-roughened, light-green, strongly purplish-blotched, rounded and sessile at base, rounded at apex, abruptly tipped by an emarginate or bidentulate beak 0.5 mm. long; achenes linear-ovoid, 2.5 mm. long, 1 mm. wide, loosely enveloped in lower half of perigynium, triangular with blunt angles, light-brown, puncticulate, short-stipitate, apiculate-tipped, jointed with the straight slender style; stigmas 3, reddish-brown, slender, short.
Type locality: "Found in the arctic regions."
Distribution: Mountains and meadows, from Yukon to Montana, and southward in the higher mountains to Tulare County, California. (Specimens examined from California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, including Vancouver Island, Montana, Alberta, Yukon.)