Troublesome Sedge (Carex molesta)
- Family: Sedge (Cyperaceae)
- Flowering: May-July.
- Field Marks: This species usually has crowded heads and ovate perigynia usually at least 1/6 inch long and at least 1/10 inch broad.
- Habitat: Wet prairies, floodplain forests; also in drier habitats.
- Habit: Perennial herb with thickened rootstocks.
- Stems: Erect, not hairy, up to 3 feet tall.
- Leaves: Elongated, narrow, up to 1/6 inch broad.
- Flowers: Male and female borne separately; the male at the base of each spike; the spikes rounded at the tip, crowded, up to 1/3 inch long.
- Scales: Lanceolate, tapering to the tip, shorter than the perigynia.
- Sepals: 0.
- Petals: 0.
- Stamens: 3.
- Pistils: Enclosed in a perigynium; each perigynium ovate, at least 1/6 inch long and at least 1/10 inch broad.
- Fruits: Achenes smooth, about 1/8 inch long.
- Notes: The achenes are eaten by waterfowl. Although the National Wetlands Inventory lists this species from areas 6 and 10, it is not attributed to Oklahoma or Texas by Correll and Correll in Aquatic and Wetland Flora of Southwestern United States (1975) or to California by Hitchcock and Cronquist in Flora of the Pacific Northwest (1973).
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