Species: Carex comosa
Encyclopedia of Puget Sound
Bristly Sedge is a coarse, perennial, grasslike plant with clustered stems, 5-10 dm high, which arise from a short rhizome. The long, glabrous leaves are flat and 4-11 mm wide. Flowers are clustered in cylindical spikes, 2-7 cm long, which arise from the axils of the smaller upper leaves (bracts). The lowest bract leaf is much longer than the inflorescence. Male flowers are borne in a narrow spike at the top; 3-5 nodding female spikes, 15 mm thick, occur below. The glabrous, spreading, pale green, lance-shaped perigynia, 5-8 mm long, have a long beak ending in two long, slender, divergent lobes. The papery scales subtending the perigynia are 1-2 mm long with a pointed tip which can be up to 6 mm long. Each perigynia has 3 styles and a 3-sided achene.
Classification
Monocotyledoneae
Cyperales
Cyperaceae
Carex
NatureServe
Classification
Ecology and Life History
Bristly Sedge is a coarse, perennial, grasslike plant with clustered stems, 5-10 dm high, which arise from a short rhizome. The long, glabrous leaves are flat and 4-11 mm wide. Flowers are clustered in cylindical spikes, 2-7 cm long, which arise from the axils of the smaller upper leaves (bracts). The lowest bract leaf is much longer than the inflorescence. Male flowers are borne in a narrow spike at the top; 3-5 nodding female spikes, 15 mm thick, occur below. The glabrous, spreading, pale green, lance-shaped perigynia, 5-8 mm long, have a long beak ending in two long, slender, divergent lobes. The papery scales subtending the perigynia are 1-2 mm long with a pointed tip which can be up to 6 mm long. Each perigynia has 3 styles and a 3-sided achene.