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.