Carex donnell-smithii L. H. Bailey

Carex donnell-smithii L. H. Bailey, Mem. Torrey Club
1:56. 1889.
"Carex viridis Jungh." Bock. Linnaea 40: 330, in part. 1876.
Carex Pittieri Bock. Allg. Bot. Zeits. 2: 190. 1896. (Type from Costa Rica.)
"Carex Jamesonii Boott" C. B. Clarke, Contr. U. S. Nat. Herb. 10: 469. 1908.
Carex Jovis C. B. Clarke, Contr. U. S. Nat. Herb. 10 : 470. 1908. (Type from Costa Rica.)
Cespitose, the culms stout, erect, 3-10 dm. high, sharply triangular with concave sides, more or less roughened above, usually exceeding the leaves, phyllopodic, strongly purplish-redtinged at base, the lower sheaths breaking and becoming prominently filamentose ; leaves with well-developed blades 7-15 to a fertile culm, the lower clustered, the blades glaucous-green, coriaceous, stiff, flat with revolute margins, keeled and channeled towards base, usually 3-6 dm. long, 3-10 mm. wide, long-attenuate, roughened towards the apex, the sheaths thin, hyaline and red-dotted ventrally, the ligule longer than wide; inflorescence compound, 2-6 dm. long, the lower primary branches usually in twos to fours, drooping or weakly erect, on rough filiform peduncles, unequal in length, usually shorter than the branches, the lower branches with several to many spikes, the upper simple; spikes androgynous, very numerous, very narrowly linear, cylindric, elongate, 3-12 cm. long, 3.5-5 mm. wide, containing 20-50 loosely disposed ascending perigynia below in few rows, the upper one fourth to one sixth staminate ; lower bracts leaf-like, short-sheathing, from shorter than to exceeding inflorescence, the upper much reduced; pistillate scales lanceolate-ovate, strongly hispid-awned to cuspidate, purplishblack with lighter 1-3-nerved midrib, and slightly hyaline apex and upper margins, as wide as perigynia at base and from slightly shorter to slightly longer; stamina te scales similar; perigynia lanceolate, scarcely inflated, compressed-triangular in cross-section, oblique and frequently bent in middle, 3.5-4 mm. long, 1.5 mm. wide, membranaceous, puncticulate, dull-green, often purplish-black-tinged, 2-ribbed and strongly few-nerved, tapering to a shortstipitate base, abruptly beaked, the beak excurved, oblique, slender, slightly rough, 1-1.5 mm. long, purplish-black-tinged, bidentate, the teeth slender, erect, stiffish, scabrous within, 0.5 mm. long; achenes oblong-obovoid, 2-2.5 mm. long, 1-1.25 mm. wide, closely enveloped, filling body of perigynium, triangular with strongly convex sides above, purplish-black, shining, not constricted in middle, substipitate, short-apiculate, jointed with the slender more or less flexuose style; stigmas 3, dark-brown, slender, short.
Type locality: Pansamala, Alta Verapaz, Guatemala (H. von Turckheim 659). Distribution: Guatemala and Costa Rica. (Specimens examined from Guatemala and Costa Rica.)

Carex donnell-smithii is a tussock-forming species of perennial sedge in the family Cyperaceae. It is native to parts of Mexico and Central America.