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Support the Flora of the Southeastern US

2024 has been a banner year for making the best flora we can imagine. We've created:
With financial support from people like you, we are aiming even higher in 2025. Together we can accomplish all this: Vote on our 2025 priorities
  • Add Global Conservation Ranks (GRanks) vote
  • Professional graphic keys (polyclaves) to individual families/genera vote
  • 2 new FloraQuest apps: Florida & Mid-South vote
  • Image overlays highlighting diagnostic characters with arrows vote
  • iNaturalist integration in FloraQuest vote
Write-in vote: vote
We've set a goal of recruiting 200 ongoing supporters to donate $15 or more each month in 2025. Please help us reach this goal and make next year's flora even better:
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Keyed in multiple places:

Click the number at the start of a key lead to highlight both that lead and its corresponding lead. Click again to show only the two highlighted leads. Click a third time to return to the full key with the selected leads still highlighted.

Key to Carex, Key A: Subkey in Carex

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1 Leaf blades 20-60 mm wide, without a midrib (with 40-100 parallel nerves all of equal prominence), leathery, the apex obtuse; leaf margin scarious, minutely crisped-ruffled (feeling scaberulous to the touch)
1 Leaf blades 0.5-25 (-52) mm wide, with a midrib, herbaceous, the apex acute; leaf margin various (smooth or scabrous, but not as described below).
  2 Spike entirely staminate.
    3 Culms distinctly red or purple at the base
    3 Culms yellow to brown or black, without red or purple coloration.
      4 Culms shorter than the leaves; widest leaf blades > 2 mm wide
      4 Culms longer than the leaves; widest leaf blades < 2 mm wide
  2 Spike pistillate or with both pistillate and staminate flowers.
        5 Stigmas 2; achenes lenticular.
          6 Perigynia very obscurely or not at all serrulate, plump; plants slender rhizomatous
          6 Perigynia minutely but strongly and regularly serrulate on apical portion and beak, ± flattened; plants cespitose
        5 Stigmas 3; achenes trigonous.
             7 Perigynia pubescent near the tip
             7 Perigynia glabrous.
               8 Spikes gynecandrous; beak of perigynium with apical teeth > 0.3 mm long
               8 Spikes androgynous or entirely pistillate; beak of perigynium with apex entire, emarginate, or with teeth < 0.2 mm long.
                 9 Lower pistillate scales > 10 mm long
                 9 Lower pistillate scales < 10 mm long.
                   10 Perigynium beak > 2 mm long, as long as or longer than the perigynium body
                   10 Perigynium beak < 2 mm long, or if more, then tapering to the perigynium body and shorter than the body.
                     11 Perigynia > 4× as long as wide
                     11 Perigynia < 4× as long as wide.
                       12 Perigynia 1-3, each with 2 marginal veins only
                       12 Perigynia 2-13, each lightly many-veined on the body in addition to 2 marginal veins

Key to Carex, Key C: Subkey in Carex

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1 Perigynia surfaces and beak often pubescent, finely papillate
1 Perigynia glabrous, papillate or not.
  2 Lateral spikes usually pedunculate; lowermost inflorescence bracts sometimes with sheath; peduncles with prophyll at base.
    3 Terminal spike gynecandrous, pistillate flowers as many as or more numerous than staminate; lateral spikes short, not much longer than wide; fresh perigynia white-pulverulent
    3 Terminal spike usually staminate or, sometimes, gynecandrous, staminate flowers then more numerous than pistillate; lateral spikes oblong, distinctly longer than wide; fresh perigynia green or slightly glaucous.
      4 Pistillate scales (at least the lower) long-awned
      4 Pistillate scales obtuse to acuminate or cuspidate.
        5 Perigynia smooth; style persistent on the achene
        5 Perigynia often papillose over most of the surface; style deciduous
  2 Lateral spikes sessile; bracts sheathless; peduncles without (or rarely with) a prophyll
          6 Perigynia papillose (visible at 20× magnification).
image of plant
Show caption*© Scott Ward
             7 Terminal spike staminate, androgynous, or gynecandrous (if gynecandrous, the staminate flowers more numerous than the pistillate); lateral spikes at least 2× as long as wide
image of plant
Show caption*© Scott Ward
             7 Terminal spike staminate or gynecandrous (if gynecandrous, the pistillate flowers more numerous than the staminate); lateral spikes not much longer than wide
          6 Perigynia smooth.
               8 Terminal spike gynecandrous; lateral spikes gynecandrous or pistillate.
                       12 Margins of perigynia flat, at least in the upper ½, flat portion (measured at the tip of the achene and base of beak) > (0.1-) 0.2 mm wider
                          13 Achenes rounded at apex (style dehiscing at the surface of the achene); style conspicuously enlarged at the base
                          13 Achenes with short apiculus formed by the persistent base of the style; style not conspicuously enlarged at base
                       12 Margins of perigynia rounded, or with flat portion < 0.1 mm wide.
                            14 Margins of perigynia rounded or with a very narrow rounded edge; achenes nearly filling the perigynium bodies
                            14 Margins of perigynia sharply edged or narrowly winged; achenes distinctly smaller than the perigynium bodies.
                              15 Inflorescences in fruit 1-1.5× as long as wide
                              15 Inflorescences in fruit 1.5-2 (or more)× as long as wide.
                                16 Lowermost perigynia in each spike ascending or erect.
                                  17 Perigynium serrulate on the margins of the upper body and lower beak
                                  17 Perigynium entire on the margins of the upper body and the lower beak
               8 Terminal spike androgynous (rarely entirely staminate or entirely pistillate); lateral spikes androgynous, staminate, or pistillate.
                 9 Sheath fronts of lower cauline leaves transversely rugose.
                   10 Perigynia mostly > 2× as long as wide, widest near the base
                   10 Perigynia mostly < 2× as long as wide, widest near middle.
                     11 Inflorescence usually branched, at least at the base, usually with > 15 spikes; pistillate scales usually yellow or brown, sometimes with hyaline margins, 3-veined
                     11 Inflorescence unbranched or with 1 or 2 short branches at the base, with < 15 spikes; pistillate scales greenish hyaline, 1-veined
                 9 Sheath fronts of lower cauline leaves smooth (or very weakly and indistinctly transversely rugose).
                                    18 Fronts of leaf sheaths dotted red, brown, or yellow.
                                       19 Perigynia widest near the base; culms usually > 1 mm wide
                                       19 Perigynia widest near the middle; culms usually < 1 mm wide.
                                         20 Plants densely cespitose, with short rhizomes; pistillate scales acute to acuminate
                                         20 Plants loosely cespitose, sometimes with long rhizomes; pistillate scales (at least the upper) obtuse
                                    18 Fronts of leaf sheaths not dotted red, brown, or yellow.
                                           21 Perigynium beak < 0.25 mm long, the margins entire
                                           21 Perigynium beak > 0.25 mm long, the margins often serrulate.
                                             22 Upper leaves of culms with front of sheaths green-veined, not differentiated from the rest of the sheath
                                             22 Upper leaves of culms with front of sheaths with at least a narrow hyaline or whitish-hyaline band extending at least ½ the length of the sheath.
                                               23 Perigynia with flat, winglike margins > 0.1 mm wide; plants long-rhizomatous, not cespitose, sometimes forming large colonies
                                               23 Perigynia without a flat margin, or with a flat margin < 0.1 mm wide; plants short-rhizomatous or inconspicuously rhizomatous, cespitose or not, sometimes forming large colonies.
                                                 24 Plants colonial from long rhizomes or stoloniferous (proliferating from last year’s decumbent sterile culms)
                                                    25 Plants long stoloniferous, proliferating from last year’s decumbent sterile culms
                                                    25 Plants rhizomatous from creeping rhizomes 1.8-3.5 mm in diameter
                                                 24 Plants cespitose.
image of plant
Show caption*© Scott Ward
                                                      26 Spikes not consistently androgynous, the terminal either entirely staminate or pistillate, the lateral spikes irregularly pistillate, or staminate, or mixed
image of plant
Show caption*© Scott Ward
                                                      26 Spikes consistently androgynous, occasionally some of the lateral spikes entirely pistillate.
                                                        27 Perigynium widest near the base, tapering from base to beak
                                                        27 Perigynium widest above the base, often abruptly beaked