These two species are morphologically similar, and without a close view of the scales the two are really hard to tell apart from photos. The way I currently go it to bump these ambiguous observations at the sect. Squarrosae, but this is far from ideal as these two species actually belong to a clade that is phylogenetically far from the core sect. Squarrosae. Subsequent updates to the carex phylogeny on INat will probably result in a splitting of the sect. Squarrosae into multiples entities. Using this species complex will likely make the swap easier

@sbrobeson The Carex Hirta clade is currently going through a taxonomic rearrangement. The framework provided by Roalson et al. (2021) and followed until recently on INaturalist (but see this flag: https://www.inaturalist.org/flags/623066) is but an intermediate step toward a fully resolved infrageneric classification of the genus Carex. Please look at the lengthy discussion under that flag to get a sense of what's going on! The species complex I am proposing are stepping stones that are going to help in making the splitting of the Carex hirta Clade easier in the future.