Beaded-broom Sedge (Carex projecta)
- Family: Sedge (Cyperaceae)
- Flowering: May-October.
- Field Marks: This sedge is distinguished by its narrowly lanceolate perigynia and its spikes not overlapping. The few male flowers are borne below the female flowers.
- Habitat: Wet prairies, swamps, floodplain woods.
- Habit: Perennial herb with a thickened rootstock.
- Stems: Erect, rough to the touch, up to 2 feet tall, some of the stems not bearing spikelets.
- Leaves: Elongated, narrow, up to 1/6 inch broad.
- Flowers: Male and female borne separately but in the same spikelet; the male flowers below the female; the spikelets not overlapping but separated, up to 1/3 inch long.
- Scales: Ovate to lanceolate, rounded or pointed at the tip, shorter than the perigynia.
- Sepals: 0.
- Petals: 0.
- Stamens: 3.
- Pistils: Enclosed in a perigynium; each perigynium lanceolate, spreading, up to 1/8 inch long.
- Fruits: Achenes about 1/16 inch long.
- Notes: The achenes are eaten by waterfowl.
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