Northeast Wetland Flora
Field Office Guide to Plant Species
Carex scabrata Schweinitz
- Family: Sedge (Cyperaceae)
- Flowering: June-August
- Field Marks: This Carex has a solitary male spike and 4-8 female spikes. The green perigynium has a roughened surface and a curved beak nearly as long as the body.
- Habitat: Wet woods, wet meadows, glades, swamps.
- Habit: Tufted perennial herb from slender rhizomes.
- Stems: Upright, unbranched, triangular, up to 1 1/2 feet tall, not hairy but very rough to the touch.
- Leaves: Several, elongated, ribbon-like, flat, up to 3/4 inch wide, not hairy but rough along the edges.
- Flowers: Borne in spikelets, the male arranged in a single, terminal spike up to 2 inches long, the female in 4-8 upright, cylindrical spikes up to 2 inches long; bracts leaf-like.
- Scales: Lanceolate, pale but with green veins, about as long as the body of the perigynium.
- Sepals: 0.
- Petals: 0.
- Stamens: 3.
- Pistils: Enclosed in a perigynium; each perigynium obovoid, triangular, green, with a rough surface, up to 1/4 inch long, with conspicuous veins, narrowed above to a curved beak nearly as long as the body; styles 3.
- Fruits: Achenes 3-sided, up to 1/8 inch long.
- Notes: The achenes are eaten by waterfowl.
Previous Species -- Drooping Sedge (Carex prasina)
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