Carex stipata var. stipata
Awl-fruited sedge
Family: Cyperaceae · Type: perennial · Native
Awl-fruited sedge is a California native perennial found in northwestern California, northern Sierra Nevada, and San Francisco Bay Area bioregions in wet places at elevations below 1,700 meters. Flowering time not specified, this sedge produces pale spikelets with indistinct clusters. Growing in dense tufts with deep-concave stems that are spongy when fresh, it forms clustered clumps with stems having sharp or winged angles. Its leaf blades are 5 to 11 millimeters wide, with sheath fronts marked by distinctive cross-wrinkles. The fruit features a spread perigynia 3.6 to 6 millimeters long, with a brown body that tapers to a poorly defined beak and contains pithy tissue in its lower wall.
Habitat: Wet places
Elevation: < 1700 m
Bioregions: NW, n&c SNH, SnFrB
California counties: Tuolumne, Sonoma, Humboldt, Mariposa, Plumas, Placer, Lake, Trinity, Del Norte, Siskiyou, Sierra, Yuba, Butte, Sacramento, Mendocino, Amador
Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.