Carex praegracilis

Black creeper or freeway sedge, Black Creeper Or Freeway Sedge

Family: Cyperaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Black creeper is a native perennial sedge found in California (except Desert Southwest) in alkaline, moist habitats at elevations below 2,700 meters. Its flowers develop in dense clusters 1 to 5 centimeters long with 6 to 10 millimeters width, typically containing fewer than 10 spikelets. Growing with slender rhizomes 2 to 5 millimeters thick, this sedge develops flat or V-shaped leaf blades 1.5 to 3 millimeters wide. Its leaves often feature a distinctive dark or thick rim at the leaf sheath mouth, with leaf bracts ranging from dull gold to brown and occasionally white-margined. The fruit develops as a dark brown, slightly dull structure approximately 1.2 to 1.9 millimeters long with a serrated beak 0.6 to 1.5 millimeters in length.

Habitat: Common. Often alkaline, +- moist places

Elevation: < 2700 m

Bioregions: CA exc DSon

California counties: San Bernardino, Los Angeles, Butte, Fresno, Inyo, Modoc, Mono, Riverside, San Diego, San Luis Obispo, Santa Clara, Siskiyou, Sonoma, Colusa, Lake, Marin, Monterey, Orange, Plumas, San Francisco, Sierra, Tulare, Kern, Santa Barbara, Ventura, Contra Costa, Yolo, El Dorado, San Joaquin, Lassen, San Benito, Sacramento, San Mateo, Del Norte, Mariposa, Placer, Calaveras, Stanislaus, Nevada, Napa, Alpine, Madera, Mendocino, Merced, Santa Cruz, Solano, Tehama, Glenn, Alameda, Shasta, Tuolumne

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