Description
Key Characters:
Growth Form:
Perennials with short, woody rhizomes.
Stems:
culms 10–90 cm tall, 2–5 mm in diameter near base, base thickly clothed with leaf sheaths 3–20 cm long.
Roots:
Leaves:
Leaves simple.
Leaves numerous, crowded.
Leaves numerous, crowded. Blades linear, shorter than or longer than the culm, 3–8 mm wide.
Blades coriaceous.
Margins recurved.
Veins parallel.
Sheathing; sheaths tinged brown, pale brown, or reddish brown, eventually splitting into parallel fibers.
Stipules absent.
Flowers:
Flowers in inflorescences simple or partially compound, umbelliform or contracted and head-like, 1.5–4 cm long, 3– 8 cm wide, rays 3–11, 0.3–6 cm long, spikes 5–12, ovoid or ellipsoid-cylindrical, 1–2 cm long, 0.8–1 cm in diameter, simple, rarely developing a smaller lateral spike at base, densely bearing numerous spikelets, the bracteoles hispid–scabrous on midnerve; involucral bracts 5–12, divergent to reflexed, 2–25 cm long, much longer than the inflorescence; spikelets bearing 2–3 glumes and 1–2 fertile flowers, erect to spreading, often curved upward, oblong-lanceolate or linear-lanceolate, moderately flattened, 3.5–4 mm long, 1–1.5 mm wide, apex acute; glumes herbaceous with rather broad hyaline margins, lanceolate to oblong-lanceolate, 3–4.5 mm long, 1–1.3 mm wide, strongly folded, 7–nerved or 9–nerved, the midnerve prominently to weakly spinulose–scabrous or smooth.
Flowers bisexual (perfect).
Corolla (petals) absent.
Stamens 3.
Ovary superior.
Fruit:
Achenes linear–oblong; trigonous; 1.5–2.2 mm long; ca. 0.4 mm wide.
Seeds 1; seed coat thin; free from pericarp; embryo basal; endosperm abundant.
Ploidy:
Habitat:
Occurring on shallow soil on coastal cliffs or among rocks on beaches; in dry; open grasslands; open sites in mesic forest; and margins of bogs.
Elevation Range:
0–1,100 m.