Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses

GRAY'S SEDGE

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Carex grayi J. Carey

Wildcat Glades Conservation & Audubon Center, Newton County, Missouri

Perennial

Height: 10-36 inches

Family: Cyperaceae - Sedge Family

Flowering Period: June, July, August, September

Also Called:

Globe sedge.

Culms:

Flowering stems 1 to few per tuft; erect, stout, triangular, rough below inflorescence, pale brown or green, reddish purple at base, much surpassing leaves.

Leaves:

6-12, flat, 4 to 14 inches long, 1/6 to 1/2 inch wide, green to gray-green, margins rough, tapering to narrow tip.

Sheaths:

Loose, white translucent on inner surface, basal sheaths purplish-red.

Ligules:

Wider than long, U-shaped.

Inflorescences:

Spikes, unisexual; terminal spike staminate, linear, .2 to 2.6 inches long, 1/25 to 1/6 inch wide; stalk 1/50 to 2.4 inches long; lateral spikes 1-2, pistillate, erect, spherical, 1 to 1.6 inch across, densely 4-35-flowered; stalks 1/40 to 1.4 inches long; bracts leaf-like, 3.2 to 10.4 inches long, 1/12 to 1/3 inch wide, much exceeding culm; staminate scales oblong-obovate to lanceolate, 1/6 to 1/4 inch long, blunt to awned, tan to pale orangish-brown with transparent margins; midrib green; pistillate scales ovate to nearly circular, 1/6 to 1/2 inch long, 1/12 to 1/6 inch wide, shorter than perigynia, straw colored to nearly white; margins white; midrib green; tip rounded to awned; awn to .35 inch long; perigynia 6-35 per spike, radiating out in all directions, nearly circular, 1/2 to 3/4 inch long, 1/6 to 1/3 inch wide, swollen, strongly 15-25-veined,glabrous to short-hairy, tapering gradually to beak 1/4 or less total length; beak 2-toothed.

Fruits:

Achene, sessile, 3-sided, egg-shaped to nearly spherical, 1/8 to 1/4 inch long, 1/10 to 1/8 inch wide, golden brown at maturity; style persistent, usually straight; stigmas 3, slender, short, blackish.

Habitat:

Moist to wet deciduous woods, along streams, river bottoms, floodplains.

Distribution:

East fifth of Kansas.

Origin:

Native

Comments:

Often found in dense clumps. Named for Asa Gray, 1810-1888, professor of botany at Harvard University and prominent American systematist and botanical author. Wrote the Manual of the Botany of the Northern States.

Gray's sedge