Single Record

Species: Carex atherodes [Carex aristata] {Carex siegertiana] [Carex pergrandis] etc.

Comments: NEED IN SITU PHOTOS. Wheat sedge has been vouchered from four Watershed counties, but even this crude assessment is disputed: Ackerfield (2022) shows only Alamosa and Conejos counties, BONAP (2025) shows Alamosa, Hinsdale, Mineral, and Saguache. So Cark B. Wolf's early record from Wolf Creek summit (Mineral Co, 1928) is accepted by one and not the other. There is enough support from voucher photographs, however, to assure that Carex atherodes has been recorded from the Watershed, for instance along the Rio Grande in the town of Alamosa (Alamosa Co, 1991), and along La Jara creek (Conejos Co, 2017). The species has some very distinctive characters, for instance perigynia with a long taper to a short, straight beak with 2 widely spreading teeth, or a sheath with ladder-like fibrous upper side. In the USA, C. atherodes has scattered locations—usually floodplains—in all Western states and farther east across the northern third of the nation. It follows the Rio Grande only into Rio Arriba and Sandoval counties, no farther down stream. This taxon has given taxonists some thought, and at least nine different genera have been proposed for it.