Carex kaloides

Detailed description

Rhizomatous; orange yellow, reddish-yellow to orange, tufted swarding sedge. Individual tufts often rather large and tussock-like. Rhizome 5 mm diameter, woody, covered in closely appressed, dark-brown, fibrous leaf-sheath remnants. Culms rising singly from rhizome, 0.3–1 m × 1 mm, at first stiffly erect, then arching and more or less spreading in upper third; trigonous, glabrous below, very finely scabrid on the angles close to the inflorescence; basal sheaths dull dark grey-brown to yellow-brown. Leaves < culms, 100–600 × 1–3.5 mm, channeled, keel well-marked, margins scabridulous near apex. Inflorescence erect, 50–180 mm long, usually compound or in large plants paniculate with distant appressed branchlets. Spikes 10–35, pale straw-coloured, usually distant, lower spikes and branchlets typically subtended by a chartaceous, long-awned bract with both keel and awn scabrid; lowermost bracts often leaf-like, > panicle in length; mostly male with perfect flowers near apex, or with mostly female with male flowers near the apex or in rare cases entirely male. Glumes > utricles, lanceolate, acuminate or awned, membranous to chartaceous, light creamy brown with a pale cream centre and rather broad hyaline margins. Utricles 4–5 × 1 mm, plano-convex, finely nerved; beak tapering, 1.5–2 mm long, winged with serrated margins; stipe 1 mm long, not contracted. Stigmas 2. Nut 2 mm, dark brown, plano-convex to biconvex, oblong, smooth.