Falkland Island Sedge

Plants densely cespitose. Culms (9–)16–60 cm. Leaves: sheath adaxially white-hyaline, summits usually U-shaped, rarely prolonged to 3 mm beyond collar; distal ligules 0.5–2.5(–3) mm; blades 2–6 per fertile culm, (4–)8–18 cm × (1.7–)2–3.6(–4) mm. Inflorescences stiffly erect, dense, brown or dark brown, 0.9–2.1 cm × 10–15(–18.5) mm; proximal internode 1.5–3.7(–4.8) mm; 2d internode 1–3 mm; proximal bracts scalelike or bristlelike, shorter than inflorescences. Spikes (3–)5–9, densely aggregated, ± individually indistinct, ovoid to broadly ovoid, 5.5–10.5 × 4–7 mm, base rounded to acute or tapered, apex truncate to tapered. Pistillate scales gold to brown, often reddish, sometimes with whitish or gold midstripe, ovate to broadly ovate, 2.7–3.5(–4) mm, shorter or longer and usually narrower than perigynia, margin, white-hyaline usually conspicuous, 0.03–0.25 mm wide, apex usually obtuse. Perigynia appressed-ascending to ascending-spreading, straw colored, gold, red-brown, or coppery, conspicuously 0–7(–11)-veined abaxially, conspicuously 0–3-veined adaxially, narrowly to broadly ovate, plano-convex to biconvex, occasionally ± flat around achene, 3.5–4.5 × (1.1–)1.3–2 mm, 0.4–0.5 mm thick, margin flat, including wing 0.2–0.5 mm wide, darker than perigynium body, ciliate-serrulate at least on distal body, pithlike tissue usually present in proximal perigynium walls in U-shape around achene, glossy metallic sheen; beak white, golden brown, red-brown, brown, or dark brown, usually white-hyaline at tip, cylindric, unwinged, ± entire for (0.4–)0.5–0.6(–0.9) mm, abaxial suture usually white, conspicuous, distance from beak tip to achene (1.2–)1.6–2.4 mm. Achenes usually elliptic, (1.2–)1.4–1.9 × 0.85–1.1 mm, 0.35–0.5 mm thick. 2n = 86.

Greenland; Alta., B.C., Nfld. and Labr. (Labr.), N.W.T., Que., Yukon; Alaska, Colo., Mont., Wyo.; South America (Chile to Tierra del Fuego); Europe (Finland, Iceland, Norway, n Sweden).

Fruiting summer–early fall.

Mountain lake and river shores, moist meadows and slopes, bogs, and other wet areas, disturbed areas; 0–3300m.

C. incondita F. J. Hermann

Carex macloviana Urv. Mem. Soe. Linn. Paris 4: 599. 1826
Carex oralis var. Brongn. in Duperrey, Voy. Coq. Bot. Phan. 150. 1834. (Based on C. macloviana
Urv.) Carex propinqua [Nees & Meyen;] Meven. Reise 1: 116. name only. 1834. (Type from Chile.) Carex /estiva Dewey, Am. Jour. Sci. 29: 246. pi. II', /. 71. 1836. (Type from Bear Lake and
Rocky Mountains.) —Carex inciso-denlata Steud. Syn. Cyp. 189. 1855. (Type from Sandy Point, Straits of Magellan.) -Carex allomacros Steud. Syn. Cyp. 189. 1855. (Type from Chile.)
Carex pratensis Philippi. Anal. Univ. Chile 93: 491. 1896. (Type from Chile.) Not C. pralensis Drejer, 1S41.
"Carex macloiiana var. gracilis Olney " Kukenth. Jour. Russe Bot. 1911: 61./. 42. 1912.
Densely cespitose, from very short, brownish, fibrillose rootstocks, the culms 1-3.5 dm. high, rather stiff (2.5-3.5 mm. thick at base), obtusely triangular below, sharply-triangular and roughened above, conspicuously striate, much exceeding the leaves, brown at base and conspicuously clothed with the dried-up leaves of the previous year, the lower bladeless; leaves with well-developed blades usually 3 or 4 to a fertile culm, bunched on the lower fourth, the blades flat, light-green, stiffish, usually 7-15 cm. long, 2.5—4 mm. wide, roughened towards the attenuate apex, the sheaths tight, white-hyaline ventrally, thin and short-prolonged at mouth beyond base of blade and continuous with ligule ; spikes 3-8, densely aggregated but the lower at least distinguishable, forming an oblong to suborbicular head 12-20 mm. long, 7-14 mm. thick, the spikes gynaecandrous, oblong-oval or ovoid, 5-10 mm. long, 4-6 mm. wide, rounded or the terminal slightly clavate at base, rounded or slightly pointed at apex, the 10-20 appressed-ascending perigynia in several to many rows, the stamina te flowers few; bracts scale-like, the lowest occasionally short-awned, much shorter than head; scales ovate, obtuse, brownish-copper-colored, usually with slightly lighter midvein, the margins and especially the apex strongly whitish-hyaline, as wide below as but shorter than the perigynia; perigynia thin, concavo-convex, ovate, flattened, but strongly distended over achene, 4 mm. long, 2 mm. wide, membranaceous, copper-brown or olive-green above on the margins, wingmargined to base, serrulate to much below middle, lightly several-nerved dorsally, obscurely few-nerved ventrally towards base, or sometimes markedly few-nerved, rounded at base, rather abruptly contracted into a slender beak the length of the body, serrulate, obliquely cut dorsally, bidentate, the tip terete, not serrulate, conspicuously white-hyaline, the margins of the orifice also white-hyaline; achenes lenticular, oval, 1.75 mm. long, 1.25 mm. wide, substipitate, apiculate; style slender, straight, jointed with achene, deciduous; stigmas two, lightyellowish-brown, slender.
Type locality: Falkland Islands.
Distribution: In calcareous districts, Greenland and Labrador to Mackenzie, and southward to the coast of Gaspe, Quebec; also in Iceland, Norway, Lapland, and Finland, and in southern South America. (Specimens examined from Greenland. Labrador, Mackenzie, Quebec (Gaspe Mountains).)