Carex bolanderi

Bolander's sedge

Family: Cyperaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Bolander's sedge is a California native perennial found in northwestern California, the Cascade Range, northern Sierra Nevada, Sierra Nevada, central coast, San Francisco Bay Area, southern coastal ranges, southwestern California, and Modoc Plateau in moist meadows, springs, shores, and forest at elevations below 2,500 meters. Flowering seasonally, this plant produces sedge-like spikes with gold-brown bracts and delicate pistillate flowers. Growing with loosely clustered stems 15 to 90 centimeters tall, it forms distinctive tufted clumps in wet habitats. Its leaf blades are relatively narrow, measuring 2 to 5 millimeters wide, with a distinctive green coloration. The fruit consists of small, narrow-elliptic perigynia with lance-shaped beaks measuring 1.5 to 2.5 millimeters long.

Habitat: Moist meadows, springs, shores, forest

Elevation: < 2500 m

Bioregions: NW, CaR, n SNF, SNH, CCo, SnFrB, SCoRO, SW, MP

California counties: Mendocino, Humboldt, Sonoma, Fresno, Butte, Monterey, Plumas, Riverside, San Bernardino, Los Angeles, Colusa, Del Norte, Marin, Nevada, Placer, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Shasta, Solano, Trinity, Tulare, San Mateo, Tuolumne, El Dorado, San Francisco, Mariposa, Siskiyou, Lake, Modoc, Inyo, San Luis Obispo, Tehama, Kern, Glenn, Sierra, Alameda, Lassen, Napa, Sacramento, Madera, San Benito, San Diego

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.