Aquatic and Wetland Vascular Plants of the Northern Great Plains

62. Cyperaceae, the Sedge Family

2. Carex L. -- Sedge

45. Carex sartwellii Dewey

Colonial from long, black rhizomes; culms arising singly or few together, stiff, sharply trigonous, 3-8 dm long, exceeding the leaves. Leaves 2.5-4 mm wide, few per culm, the lowest much reduced, lacking blades; sheaths green-striate ventrally, prolonged into a conspicuous hyaline, tubular ligule. Spikes bisexual or the upper ones often staminate, otherwise androgynous, aggregate or the lower ones separate, ovoid, 5-10 mm long, in heads narrowly oblong to conic, 3-6 cm long; bracts reduced, the lower ones sometimes setaceous and exceeding the spike; scales brown with a prominent green midvein, acute to cuspidate, about equaling the perigynia. Perigynia tan to brown, plano-convex, ovate, 2.5-3.5 mm long, ca. 1/2 as wide, finely nerved on both sides, sharp-edged, tapered into the serrulate, oblique to minutely bidentate beak which is ca. 1/4 the length of the entire perigynium; achenes lenticular, 1-1.5 mm long; stigmas 2. Jun--Jul. Wet meadows, marshes, shores, stream banks and ditches; frequent in the n and e parts, uncommon w; (NY and Ont. to B.C., s to IN, MO, NE and CO).


Carex sartwellii (from Hermann 1970).

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