Carex gigantea

Plants loosely cespitose or not, long-rhizomatous. Culms solitary or not, erect, 35-120 cm. Leaves 4-8; basal sheaths reddish to brownish; sheath of distal leaf 5-20 cm; ligules triangular, 4.5-35 mm; blades 20-60 cm × 5-16 mm. Inflorescences 15-40 cm; peduncles of basal 2 pistillate spikes 5-20 cm apart; of terminal 3-8 cm shorter than to somewhat exceeding the distal pistillate spike; bracts leafy, sheath 0.5-5 cm, blades 30-60 cm × 6-11 mm. Spikes: proximal pistillate spikes 2-5 per culm, ± separate, 20-75-flowered, cylindric, 3-8 × 2-3 cm; terminal staminate spikes 1-5, 2-8 cm × 2-4 mm. Pistillate scales 3-5-veined, lanceolate to lanceolate-ovate, 4.5-10.5 × 1.5-2 mm. Anthers 3, 2.8-5 mm. Perigynia stiffly spreading at right angles to rachis, lanceoloid to lance-ovoid, 11-18 × 4-6 mm, shiny, glabrous; beak conic, 6-9 mm. Achenes broadly stipitate, obconic with rounded to truncate summit and concave faces, angles strongly thickened, 2.2-2.6 × 2.7-3 mm; style same texture as achene.

Fruiting late spring-early summer. Wet swamp forests, forest openings, open swamps; 0-400 m; Ala., Ark., Del., Fl., Ga., Ill., Ind., Ky., La., Md., Miss., Mo., N.C., Okla., S.C., Tenn., Tex., Va.

Stems 5-12 dm, smooth, solitary or few together from long, dark, scaly, sympodial rhizomes; basal sheaths persistent, brownish; lvs evidently septate-nodulose, 5-16 mm wide, the uppermost nonbracteal one with a sheath 5-20 cm; staminate spikes 1-5, 2-8 cm, on a collective peduncle 3-8 cm that is surpassed by or only slightly surpasses the uppermost pistillate spike; pistillate spikes 2-5, ascending, not crowded, their subtending bracts leafy, with a sheath 0.5-5 cm; pistillate scales 4.5-10.5 mm, slender, not awned; perigynia 20-75, ±spreading, smooth and shiny, strongly multinerved, 11-18 נ4-6 mm, with a short fat body and long conic beak 6-9 mm, this bidentate with smooth teeth; achene loosely enveloped, 2.2-2.6 נ2.7-3 mm, broadly stipitate, obpyramidal with rounded or truncate summit, concavely trigonous, with thickened angles; style persistent and becoming bony, straight or weakly contorted below. Swamps and wet woods, chiefly on the coastal plain; Del. to Fla. and Tex., n. in the Mississippi Valley to s. Ind.

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

©The New York Botanical Garden. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

From Flora of Indiana (1940) by Charles C. Deam

Rare and local in the southern counties in cypress swamps and swampy or low open woods.

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Indiana Coefficient of Conservatism: C = 10

Wetland Indicator Status: OBL