Common Name: Mead's sedge

Duration: Perennial

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Graminoid

General: Mat forming from long rhizomes, shoots widely scattered and inconspicuous with stems 15-60 cm, usually scabrous near the tips.

Vegetative: Leaves with sheaths near the base with brownish blades, 1.5-5 mm in diameter, ligules 0.4-3.5 mm, half to 1.2 times wider than long, blades gray green, flat, 7-15 cm long, 2-5 mm wide, folded near bases, margins often revolute, herbaceous.

Inflorescence: While inflorescence 4-25 cm, 1-1.6 times as long as basal bracts, these with sheath 0.5-4 cm, blade 2-16 cm; pistillate spikes ovate to cylindric, 6-37 mm long, 3.5-8 mm wide, lateral spikes erect or ascending on stiff peduncles, pistillate scales purple tinged or brown, apex awned or obtuse; perigynia ascending to spreading, densely arranged, yellow green to brown 2.3-5 mm long by 1.25-2.5 mm, minutely papillose, beak minute, bent; achenes light to dark brown, 2.7-4 mm by 1.7-2.2 mm.

Ecology: Found in moist soils, sometimes on calcareous substrates, but can tolerate drier sites from 4,000-8,000 ft (1219-2438 m); flowers April-July.

Notes: This species was formerly identified in Arizona as Carex. meadii (an eastern US species). It shows closer affinity to a California/Oregon endemic recently named Carex klamathensis; however, A. Reznicek of UM indicates that it should probably be described as a new Arizona endemic. This new species morphologically resembles Carex hassei; both share a rhizomatous habit, a single terminal staminate spike, and several slender lateral pistillate spikes. In this species, almost all of the pistillate flowers have 3 stigmas, while in Carex hassei there is a range from all with 2 stigmas to a mix of both 2 and 3 stigmas. (Notes: Max Licher and Glenn Rink 2012)

Ethnobotany: Unknown

Etymology: Carex is the classical Latin name for the genus, while klamathensis is named for the Klamath region in southern Oregon.

Synonyms: Carex tetanica var. meadii, Carex meadii

Editor: SBuckley, 2010