Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses

DAVIS SEDGE

File Size: 37 KB

Carex davisii Schwein. & Torr.

Jefferson County, Kansas

Perennial

Height: 1-3 feet

Family: Cyperaceae - Sedge Family

Flowering Period: May, June, July

Also Called:

Emerson davis' carics sedge.

Culms:

Erect to loosely ascending, shorter than to longer than leaves, sharply triangular, glabrous or somewhat hairy, purplish at base.

Leaves:

Blades 1/2 to 16 inches long, 1/6 to 1/3 inch wide, flat, green to dark green, glabrous or usually hairy beneath near base; lowermost leaves reduced to nearly bladeless sheaths.

Sheaths:

Long, hairy, yellowish-brown on inner surface.

Ligules:

About as long as wide, U-shaped to broadly V-shaped; inner side thin, white.

Inflorescences:

Bracts leaf-like; terminal spike stalked, mostly staminate but with few to several pistillate flowers near tip, linear to narrowly oblanceolate in outline, .6 to 1.5 inches long; staminate scales lanceolate, white with green midrib, tip awned; lateral spikes 2-3, short- to long-stalked, pistillate, .8 to 1.6 inches long, 1/8 to 1/4 inch wide, erect when young, usually drooping at maturity; pistillate scales narrowly elliptic-ovate, white or pale green, midrib green, tapering to awn 1/10 to 1/5 inch long, uppermost pistillate scales with awn more than half as long as body of scale; perigynia ovate-lanceolate, 1/6 to 1/4 inch long, broadest below middle, strongly ribbed, pale green to green, tip tapering to short beak with 2 minute teeth.

Fruits:

Achenes, triangular, 1/10 inch long, yellowish-brown, 1-seeded; stigmas 3.

Habitat:

Rich deciduous woods, edges of streams and rivers, roadsides, occasionally low meadows.

Distribution:

Principally east 1/4 of Kansas.

Comments:

Forms dense clumps.

Davis sedge inflorescence