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Frank's Sedge (Carex frankii)

• Family: Sedge (Cyperaceae)
• Flowering: May-September.
• Field Marks: This sedge has its cylindrical spikes nestled down among leafy bracts that are 2-4 times longer than the spikes. The male flowers are borne in a separate spike.
• Habitat: Swamps, floodplain woods, wet meadows, wet prairies, along rivers and streams, roadside ditches, around ponds and lakes.
• Habit: Perennial herb with rhizomes.
• Stems: Erect, smooth, up to 2 feet tall.
• Leaves: Elongated, narrow, rough to the touch, up to 1/3 inch broad.
• Flowers: Male and female borne separately; the male flowers in a narrow, cylindrical spike up to 1 1/4 inches long; the female flowers in 3-6 dense, cylindrical spikes up to 1 1/2 inches long, much surpassed by leafy bracts.
• Scales: Very narrow, minutely toothed, awn-like, longer than the perigynia.
• Sepals: 0.
• Petals: 0.
• Stamens: 3.
• Pistils: Enclosed in a perigynium; each perigynium reversely cone-shaped, tapering to the base, conspicuously nerved, depressed at the summit where the conspicuous 2-toothed beak arises; the entire perigynium up to 1/4 inch long.
• Fruits: Achenes obovoid, about 1/10 inch long.
• Notes: The achenes are eaten by waterfowl.