Aquatic and Wetland Vascular Plants of the Northern Great Plains

62. Cyperaceae, the Sedge Family

2. Carex L. -- Sedge

6. Carex bebbii Olney ex Fern.

Tufted; culms sharply trigonous, 1.5-8 dm long. Leaves shorter to slightly longer than the culms, 1.5-4.5 mm wide; sheaths white-hyaline ventrally. Spikes bisexual, gynaecandrous, 5-10, ovoid to subglobose, 5-8 mm long, closely aggregate in an ovoid head 1.5-2.5 cm long; bracts of the inflorescence reduced and inconspicuous; pistillate scales acute to acuminate, narrower and slightly shorter than the perigynia. Perigynia green to brown, plano-convex, ovate, 2.5-3.5 mm long, finely nerved dorsally, nerveless ventrally, narrowly wing-margined to the base; beak ca. 1/3 to 1/2 the entire length of the perigynium, serrulate, shallowly bidentate; achenes lenticular, 1-1.5 mm long; stigmas 2. Jun--Aug. Wet meadows, marshes, stream banks, floodplains, ditches and other wet places; frequent in the e part and the Black Hills, less so in the c; (Newf. to B.C., s to NJ, OH, IL, NE and CO).


Carex bebbii (from Hermann 1970).

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