Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses - Curly-styled wood sedge

CURLY-STYLED WOOD SEDGE

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Carex rosea Schkuhr ex Willd.

Jefferson County, Kansas

Perennial

Height: 8-20 inches

Family: Cyperaceae - Sedge Family

Flowering Period: April, May, June

Culms:

Erect to spreading, slender, sharply triangular, glabrous, shorter than to mostly longer than leaves.

Leaves:

Green to light green, 4/5 to 12 inches long, 1/16 to 1/10 inch wide.

Sheaths:

Tight around culm.

Ligules:

U-shaped, less than 1/12 inch long.

Inflorescences:

Stiff, open, .8 to 2.8 inches long, 4-8 spikes, lowermost spikes well separated, uppermost sometimes overlapping; lowermost bracts hair-like, 1/12 to 3.2 inches long, shorter than to sometimes up to twice as long as inflorescence; spikes sessile, inconspicuously staminate toward tip, pistillate at base, 1/8 to 1/4 inch long, 1/5 to 1/3 inch wide; pistillate scales ovate to triangular-ovate, 1/2 length of perigynia, transparent with green midrib; tip blunt, pointed or awned; perigynia 7-14, radiating in all directions, lanceolate to ovate in outline, 1/10 to 1/6 inch long, 2-3 times as long as wide, green; base round, spongy; tip tapering to short beak; not white transparent at orifice.

Flowers:

Achene, egg-shaped, less than 1/12 inch long, 1-seeded; stigmas 2, short, stout, twisted or coiled.

Habitat:

Moist to dry, open woods.

Distribution:

East 1/5 of Kansas.

Comments:

Forms tufts.

Curly-styled wood sedge