Carex bushii

On Wednesday I was doing some work in one of our meadows and came across a sedge that looked a little odd to me - I was pretty sure that I had not seen it before so I plucked a culm and threw it in my bag.  When I keyed it out at the end of the day it easily went right to Carex bushii (Bush's sedge) a threatened species in Ohio.  This was exciting considering the fact that no records exist for C. bushii in this county, so on Thursday I headed back out to find the plant and get a proper sample to press.  I headed to the area and quickly found a nice patch of sedges that looked similar but not exactly like the one I collected the day before.  I collected some and keyed them out using Field Manual of Michigan Flora this time the sedge keyed out to C. bushii but not as smoothly as before.  Using the key I quickly made it to the Porocystis (Virescentes) group and ruled out C. swanii and C. virescens due to the galbrous perigynia on this species.  The terminal spike was pistillate at the apex ruling out C. pallescens (also growing in this field), so the only two choices left were C. bushii and C. hirsutella a tough call because the scales were visible but just barley sticking out beyond the perigynia - C. hirsutella is said to be awnless or with an awn less than 0.5mm since these awns were longer I hesitantly landed at C. bushii again but I was sure that this was different than the sedge that I had seen the day before.

Not happy with the result I looked in Vascular Plants of Ohio and in Gleason and Cronquist and found  that another species within this group exists in Ohio but not in Michigan - no wonder the key didn't seem to fit.  I ran the plant through Gleason and Cronquist: terminal spike pistillate at top staminate below, perigynia glabrous, perigynia spreading (not appressed and ascending).  This took me to two species C. bushii and C. caroliniana with the differences in hairiness of the sheath and length of the scale.  This specimen has hair all the way around the sheath but it is very sparse and again the scales are about even with the perigynia but not as long as they should be for C. bushii.   I was still confused.  Next I ran it through the Vascular Plants of Ohio key: perigynia glabrous, terminal spike staminate only at base, blades glabrous sheaths pubescent and perigynia plump – this took me to C. caroliniana.  If the blades were pubescent and the perigynia flattened I would have ended at C. hirsutella.  OK so I finally keyed it out to C. caroliniana but I was not  satisfied because this key was missing C. bushii.

I decided to look in Vascular Flora of Illinois and not only were all three (C. bushii, C. hirsutella and C. caroliniana) included in the key but they are the last three listed in the Group 1 section (sedges with hairy parigynia, sheaths and/or leaves), here is the end of the key:

Leaves very sparsely hairy…………………………………………………..................................................................................................C. caroliniana
Leaves moderately to copiously hairy
            Pistillate scales lanceolate, acuminate to awned, longer than the perigynia; perigynia rounded on all faces and strongly nerved………………………………......................................................................................................................................................................C. bushii
            Pistillate scales ovate, acute to cuspidate, shorter than the perigynia; perigynia with flat, inner face, weakly nerved…………………………………………................................................................................................................................................C. hirsutella

Using the Illinois key I was satisfied that I had found C. bushii on Wednesday and C. caroliniana on Thursday.  I spent the rest of Thursday looking for the sedge that keyed so smoothly to C. bushii but I could find nothing but the sedge that I am now calling C. caroliniana.

Finally on Friday morning I retraced my path from Wednesday and located the sedge, once again it keyed very quickly to C. bushii.  Looking around I found examples of what I believe to be C. bushii, C. caroliniana, C. hirsutella and C. pallescens – here is a photo that I made of the four plants.

a comparison between C. bushii and C. caroliniana

and a close up of C. bushii

C.bushii seems to grow with culms that are spreading and at agles close to 45 degrees to the ground.

C. caroliniana culms are ascending with angles closer to 90 degrees.

Carex woodii?

In April I came across this rhizotomous sedge in a low terrace of the East Branch Chagrin River in Northeast Ohio. I had a difficult time keying it out but after narrowing it down I concluded that it was Carex woodii.  "Carex woodii is a plant of rich, often moist, deciduous forest, especially beech-maple, an early species fruiting mid-May or earlier"  Voss and Reznicek, Field Manual of Michigan Flora.  The timing and location of my find seem to fit well with the description - this is a rich beech-maple forest and it was early in the season.

 

My best attempt with a camera phone to capture the colony of what I think is Carex woodii.

A single clump plucked to show the shallow dark rhizome.

Some sketches I made to show some of the features of this Carex.

If this is not Carex woodii please let me know!

Carex plantaginea

Carex plantaginea or plantain-leaved sedge is one of the easiest sedges to identify and also one of the most attractive sedges in the eastern forest.  C. plantaginea is included in a group of sedges called Careyanae and sometimes included in a slightly larger group called Laxiflorae.  Sedges in the Laxiflorae group can be quite difficult (at least for me) to key out to species however, the wide leaves of C. plantaginea quickly break it away from the majority of the species included in Laxiflorae.  Leaves of C. plantaginea, especially on sterile shoots, measure 10 - 40mm in width, only 3 other species in the Laxiflorae group haves leaves nearing this size (C. platyphylla, C. albursina and C. careyana). 

 C. plantaginea and C. careyana both display red  at the bases of the plant while C. platyphylla and C. albursina both lack red and appear pale white.  The field sketch below shows the difference in color of the bases of C. plantaginea and C. platyphylla.

C. plantaginea lacks cauline bracts or blades while C. careyana has flat green cauline bracts and blades.  The illustration below shows the top two spikes of a C. plantaginea culm, the lower of the two is the pistillate spike - notice that their is no blade or bract at the base of the spike.

This is Carex plantaginea.

Perigynia the Blog!



In May 2010 I asked my supervisor if I could attend a sedge identification workshop; his response was, “sure, but I hope you like squinting through a hand lens” - I have been squinting at sedges ever since. The class was taught by Dr. Jim Bissell of the Cleveland Natural History Museum and it sparked an interest in me that I never expected, I had a new found desire to take on the botanical world of Carex.

Now I see sedges everywhere including walks around my suburban neighborhood, in my neighbors unkempt backyard and on vacation.  I try not to do any public squinting when my wife is around because she is embarrassed by my hand lens; she thinks it makes me look “dorky”.  Nonsense, I say, it is a perfectly normal piece of equipment; okay maybe I looked a little goofy peering through my 20X and sipping Corona on the beach during summer vacation. 

I am not a botanist but rather a natural areas manager a job title that is impossible to explain to anyone outside of the natural resources field without them concluding that I am either a gardener or a park ranger.  However, I am lucky I get to do some botanist-type work which I very much enjoy and I admit I am even guilty of calling myself a botanist when I don’t have the energy to explain my actual job title.  Again, I am not a trained botanist and I am ashamed to admit that before June 2010 I had never even made an honest attempt to key out a sedge to species, instead preferring to use the Carex sp umbrella.  Anyone who owns a “Flora of …” field guide has surely noticed that the Genus Carex can easily chew-up 50 plus pages of dichotomous key without the help of pictures or line drawings.  It can be intimidating. 

I now have two sedge seasons (roughly May 15 – July 15) under my belt, but still get confused to a maddening level at least once a week during the season, but more importantly I am still determined to learn my sedges.  So I have decided to start a blog devoted to sedges! I will post images, sketches and field notes of sedges that I find and identify (or try to identify) and then a real botanist will see the post tell me I am way off and correct my identification – I can’t think of a better way to learn.

Welcome to Perigynia!