Carex leporina

Hare or oval sedge

Family: Cyperaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Hare sedge is a California native perennial found in northern coastal ranges and San Francisco Bay Area in seasonally wet soils at elevations below 1,200 meters. Producing distinctive spikelets with red-gold, brown, or greenish bracts, the sedge has delicate flower structures that emerge with subtle coloration. Growing with slender stems and flat leaf blades 1.5 to 4 millimeters wide, this sedge develops occasionally late-season leafy branches from its nodes. Its leaf blades feature short ligules generally less than 2.5 millimeters long, with spikelets that are ovate to wide-ovate and distinctly shaped. The fruit develops as a small, sessile structure approximately 1.1 to 1.8 millimeters long, with a wide-ovate perigynia in gold to light brown tones.

Habitat: Seasonally wet soil

Elevation: < 1200 m

Bioregions: NCoRO, SnFrB

California counties: Sonoma, Humboldt, Mendocino, Sacramento

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