Short's Sedge (Carex shortiana)
- Family: Sedge (Cyperaceae)
- Flowering: May-July.
- Field Marks: This sedge has the male flowers below the female flowers. The perigynia quickly turn brown and are tightly packed together vertically.
- Habitat: Wet prairies, swamps, roadside ditches, around ponds and lakes.
- Habit: Perennial herb with thickened rootstocks.
- Stems: Erect, rough to the touch but not hairy, up to 3 feet tall.
- Leaves: Elongated, narrow, overtopping the flowering stem, rough along the edges, up to 1/3 inch broad.
- Flowers: Male and female borne separately; the male borne below the female; both in narrow, cylindrical spikes up to 1 1/2 inches long.
- Scales: Broadly lanceolate, tapering to the tip and with a short awn, longer than the perigynia.
- Sepals: 0.
- Petals: 0.
- Stamens: 3.
- Pistils: Enclosed in a perigynium; each perigynium obovate, flattened, minutely beaked, quickly turning brown; all the perigynia in a spike tightly packed together vertically.
- Fruits: Achenes smooth, about 1/16 inch long.
- Notes: The achenes are eaten by waterfowl.
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