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Western Wetland Flora

Field Office Guide to Plant Species

Bristly-stalk Sedge
Carex leptalea Wahlenb.

JPG -- Species Photo JPG -- Distribution Map

Family: Sedge (Cyperaceae)
Flowering: May-August
Field Marks: This rather delicate, slender sedge has a single slender spike at the tip of each stem with the male flowers at the top of the spike. The perigynia completely lack a beak.
Habitat: Swamps, bogs, fens, around lakes and ponds.
Habit: Perennial herb with branched rhizomes.
Stems: Upright, very slender, up to 18 inches tall, smooth.
Leaves: Elongated, very narrow, flat, up to 1/20 inch wide, smooth, nearly always shorter than the stem.
Flowers: Male and female flowers borne in a solitary terminal slender spike with the male flowers at the top, the spike up to 3/4 inch long, not subtended by a bract.
Scales: Ovate to lanceolate, rounded or pointed or even awned at the tip, greenish or brownish, shorter than the perigynia.
Sepals: 0.
Petals: 0.
Stamens: 3.
Pistils: Enclosed in a perigynium; each perigynium ellipsoid, rounded and not beaked at the tip, narrowed to a spongy base, 1/6-1/4 inch long, pale green to straw-colored; stigmas 3.
Fruits: Achenes triangular, about 1/12 inch long, smooth.
Notes: The achenes are eaten by waterfowl.

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U.S. Department of the Interior | U.S. Geological Survey
URL: http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/plants/florawe/species/3/carelept.htm
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Page Last Modified: Saturday, 02-Feb-2013 06:24:29 EST
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