This sedge has long rhizomes and often forms dense clumps or colonies in wet places (B,C). Erect flowering stems 16-48 inches long are usually taller than the leaves (C). Each stem bears 4-8 spikes, the light brown terminal one always male (D). Below, there may be one or more lateral male spikes or mixed spikes with male flowers above the female ones (E). Lowest spikes are entirely female, the female flowers bearing two showy white stigmas (D,F). The flat, green, rounded perigynia have short beaks and no teeth (H). Scales have reddish brown edges and green midribs (A,H).
Streambanks, wet ditches, marshes. At Fontenelle Forest, Emory’s Sedge is common in both Camp Gifford Road ditches immediately west of the parking lot and on Stream Trail. It is rare at Neale Woods where one plant was observed on the Missouri River bank below the Missouri River Ecology Trail bench. Flowering begins in mid-April. The perigynia drop rather quickly, but are present to mid-May.
Two similar sedges also found in wet places on the floodplain are Smoothcone (Carex laeviconica) and Shoreline Sedge (Carex hyalinolepis). Both have 3 stigmas and long-beaked, toothed perigynia that are rounded, not flat, in cross-section.
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