Carex tahoata

Detailed description

Stout, caespitose, red, reddish-green to bronze green sedge up to 0.8 m tall. Culms 100–600 × 0.5–1 mm, trigonous, scabrid on the angles above, or subterete and smooth. Leaves reddish, red-green, 250–600 × 1.5–2.2. mm, conduplicate or subplicate, scabrid on the margins and upper surfaces, basal sheaths short, 20–100 mm long. Inflorescence 80–200 mm, lowest internode 20–160 mm long, lowest bract sheath 10–20 mm long. Spikes 4–6–(8), terminal spike male, 10–20 mm long; slender, on a peduncle up to 10 mm long or subsessile, remainder female, lowest 10–15 mm, upper shorter, 4 mm wide, cylindric, sessile or the lowest on peduncles up to 10 mm long. Glumes equalling the utricles, oblong, obtuse to subacute to shortly acuminate, pale to red brown with abroad hyaline margin, and a pale midrib not reaching the margin or prolonged as a 0.2 mm or less mucro. Utricles 2–2.5 × 1.3–1.8 mm, ovoid ellipsoid, broadly ellipsoid to suborbicular, planoconvex or unequally biconvex, pale below, very dark brown above, smooth and glossy, margins scabrid on upper half, beak absent, crura up to 20.2 mm long, readily abraded.