Carex canescens

Plants cespitose, in small and medium-sized clumps; rhizomes short. Culms erect, not stiff, 15-90 cm. Leaves: sheaths pale brown abaxially, inner band thin, hyaline, sometimes slightly red tinged, concave at summit; ligules slightly longer than wide; blades pale green to gray-green flat, 10-20(-30) cm × (1.5-)2-4 mm, subequal to shorter than culms, not stiff. Inflorescences 2-15 cm × 5-10 mm; proximal bracts shorter than to exceeding spikes; distal bracts usually scalelike. Spikes 4-8, gynecandrous, proximal ± remote, distal spikes approximate, sometimes flexuous, containing (5-)10-20(-30) perigynia suborbicular to oblong, 3-12 × 3-5 mm; terminal spike staminate for less than 1/2 of length, often clavate due to more conspicuous staminate part. Pistillate scales hyaline with green, 3-veined center when young, usually brownish tinged in age, broadly ovate, subequal to, not concealing perigynia, apex obtuse to acutish. Perigynia appressed-ascending, gray-green, becoming yellowish brown, obscurely many-veined, elliptic-ovate, 1.8-3 × 1.2-1.7 mm, widest near middle, membranous; beak abaxial suture inconspicuous, small marginal teeth. Achenes pale brown, oblong-obovate, 1.25-1.5 × 1-1.25 mm, dull to slightly glossy. 2n = 56.

Tufted, 2-6 dm; lvs mostly somewhat glaucous or grayish-green in life, clustered near the base, often shorter than the stems, ±flat, 1.5-3.5 mm wide; bracts inconspicuous, or the lowest ones setaceous-tipped and surpassing the spikes; spikes 4-8, gynaecandrous, 5-10 mm, sessile, the upper approximate, the lower usually somewhat remote, silvery-greenish to pale grayish or pale-stramineous; pistillate scales mostly shorter than the perigynia, these mostly (10-)15-30, ascending (the short beaks not interrupting the outline of the spike), mostly 1.8-2.5 mm, planoconvex, not thin-edged, minutely rough-textured, somewhat corky-thickened below, not especially thin-walled distally, elliptic or elliptic-ovate, with a beak-apiculation to 0.5 mm, evidently but rather finely nerved on both faces, the ventral nerves fewer than the dorsal; dorsal suture short and inconspicuous, to ca 0.4(-0.7) mm, or practically obsolete; achene lenticular, filling the perigynium; 2n=54, 56. Swamps and bogs; circumboreal, s. to Va., O., Minn., Ariz., and Calif.

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

Frequent in the counties along the northern border of Indiana in tamarack bogs or low wet woods.

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Indiana Coefficient of Conservatism: C = 10

Wetland Indicator Status: OBL