Northeast Wetland Flora
Field Office Guide to Plant Species
Carex disperma Dewey
- Family: Sedge (Cyperaceae)
- Flowering: May-August
- Field Marks: This very slender sedge has only 1-3 perigynia per spike, nearly terete perigynia, and white female scales.
- Habitat: Wet woods, bogs.
- Habit: Perennial herb with fibrous roots and slender stolons.
- Stems: Very slender, ascending to upright, unbranched, up to 1 1/2 feet tall, smooth.
- Leaves: Elongated, flat, 1/12-1/10 inch wide, smooth, shorter than the stems.
- Flowers: Borne in spikelets, with a few male flowers at the top and usually 1-3 female flowers below, with or without very short bracts; female scales white, lanceolate.
- Sepals: 0.
- Petals: 0.
- Stamens: 3.
- Pistils: Borne in a perigynium, each perigynium plump, ellipsoid-ovoid, terete, shiny, rounded at the tip except for a minute beak, finely nerved, 1/10-1/8 inch long.
- Fruits: Achenes lenticular, thick, ellipsoid in overall outline, nearly black.
- Notes: The achenes are eaten by waterfowl.
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