achenes, so their marginal nerves become displaced to the 

 side towards the stem, and sometimes rupture. Figure 6 

 is an illustration of the species. 



2. Technical description (quoted from Hermann 1970): 

 Cespitose from short-prolonged, fibillose rootstocks; 

 culms slender, 2-6 dm. high, roughened on the angles 

 below the head; leaves about 3 to a culm, 1-1,5 mm wide, 

 thin, the sheaths light, thin ventrally, the ligule very- 

 short, wider than long; spikes closely aggregated into a 

 dense, terminal, oblong-linear head, 1.5-2.5 cm. long, 6- 

 8 mm wide, the staminate flowers terminal and 

 inconspicuous; scales broadly triangular, shorter than 

 the perigynia, hyaline with the centers brownish and 1-3- 

 nerved, acute to short-cuspidate; perigynia plano-convex, 

 oblong-elliptic, 3.5-3.75 mm. long, 1.75-2.25 mm. wide, 

 margined, greenish or brown tinged, nerveless ventrally, 

 obscurely nerved dorsally, glossy at maturity, the margin 

 more or less serrulate above, abruptly narrowed into a 

 minutely serrulate beak about 1 mm. long, obliquely cut 

 and only shallowly bidentulate; achenes lenticular, 

 orbicular, substipitate, 2X2 mm. 



3. Diagnostic characters: Carex vallicola can be 

 distinguished from other sedges in Montana by the 

 following technical characters: 2 stigmas, lenticular 

 achenes; fewer than 10 sessile, androgenous (male flowers 

 above female flowers) spikes per head; cespitose culms; 

 leaves 0.5-3.5 mm wide; perigynia abruptly narrowed to a 

 beak which is obliquely cut and only minutely bidentulate 

 (Dorn 1984). The mature perigynia are distinctively 

 distended so that the margins run down the ventral side 

 (Hermann 1970) . 



B. PRESENT LEGAL OR OTHER FORMAL STATUS 



1. Federal 



a. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: none 



b. U.S. Forest Service: none 



c. BLM: none 



2. State: The Montana Natural Heritage Program ranks Carex 

 vallicola as G5 and S2S3 (Heidel 1994). This means that 

 it is demonstrably secure globally, but it is more rare 

 and somewhat vulnerable to extirpation in Montana. 



22 



