few-seeded sedge

not listed

N3N4 - Vulnerable to Apparently Secure

SNR - Unranked

not listed

OBL - Obligate wetland

OBL - Obligate wetland

OBL - Obligate wetland

Few-seeded sedge is a 14″ to 40″ tall, erect, perennial sedge that rises on a single stalk or in a loose clump with just a few stalks from a long, creeping, underground stalk (rhizome). It often forms loose colonies.

The stem (culm) is slender, broadly three-angled in cross section, smooth, and tinged purple at the base. It is hairless but is sometimes rough to the touch on the angles near the tip.

The leaves are wiry, stiff, dark green, hairless, and 1 ⁄32″ to ⅛″ wide. The margins are rolled inwards. The lower part of the leaf that surrounds the stem (sheath) of basal leaves is reddish-purple and usually persists into the next season. The appendage a the junction of the leaf sheath (ligule) is as wide or wider than long.

The flowers appear from May to June. The inflorescence consists of 2 to 4 flower clusters (spikes) at the end of the culm. It is 1¼″ to 8″ long and is subtended by a single modified leaf (bract). The bract is stiff, straight, wiry, and usually 1¼″ to 6″ long, sometimes up to 10″ long. It is slightly shorter than or slightly exceeds the tip of the staminate spike. The spikes are unisexual, with all female (pistillate) or male (staminate) flowers. There are 1 to 3 lateral pistillate spikes and usually just a single terminal staminate spike. The lowest spike rises erect from the axil of the inflorescence bract. If there are one or two more pistillate spikes they are widely separated from the first and from each other. The staminate spike is held well above the uppermost pistillate spike.

The pistillate spikes are erect and stalkless or nearly stalkless. They are short, plump, and egg-shaped to short-cylindric. They consist of just 3 to 15 inflated, ⅛″ to ¼″ long spikelets. The spikelet is a single flower subtended by a sac-like structure (perigynium) which is in turn subtended by a modified bract (scale). The scale is egg-shaped, ⅛″to ¼″ long, and ⅛″ wide, shorter than the perigynium. It is sharply pointed but does not have a bristle-like extension (awn) at the tip.

The perigynium is ascending, leathery, and shiny. It is inflated, egg shaped, ⅛″ to ¼″ long, and tapered at the tip. It ends in a 1 ⁄64″ to 1 ⁄32″ long, prolonged, terminal appendage (beak). There are 7 to 15 distinct, longitudinal veins that extend onto the beak. Enclosed by the perigynium is a single ovary with one style. The style is branched into three stigmas that project from the narrow opening at the top of the perigynium.

Staminate spikes are slender, club-like, linear in outline, ascending to erect, and stalkless or short-stalked. They consist of many flowers in a dense, spiral arrangement. Staminate flowers have three stamens.

The fruit is a dry, brown, one-seeded capsule (achene) with the three dried stigmas still attached. It is three-angled and 1 ⁄16″ to ⅛″ long, almost as large as the perigynium. It matures from June to July and persists on the plant into August or September.

14″ to 40″

Woolly-fruit sedge (Carex lasiocarpa) inside of leaf sheaths have distinctly raised cross lines (septations) between the veins.

Wet. Bogs, fens, swamps, marshes, lakeshores, river banks.

Mid-June to early September

Sources

2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 24, 28, 29, 30.

Native

Common in sphagnum bogs

Location: Blaine Preserve SNA