Carex vulpinoidea

Brown fox sedge, Brown Fox Sedge

Family: Cyperaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Brown fox sedge is a native perennial sedge found in southeastern Klamath Ranges, Cascade Range, northern Sierra Nevada Foothills, Central Valley, and Central Coast in wet areas, marshes, shores, and floodplains at elevations below 1,200 meters. Flowering in spring and early summer, this sedge produces dull yellow-green to pale gray-brown spikelets in dense clusters 5 to 10 centimeters long. Growing in dense tufts with flowering stems shorter than its leaves, it develops blade-like leaves 2 to 5 millimeters wide with distinctively cross-wrinkled leaf sheaths. Its leaves feature minute reddish dots and develop spikelets with thin bracts, often with multiple spikelets at each lower node. The fruit is small, approximately 1.2 to 1.6 millimeters long, with a pale yellow-green to gray-brown coloration and a short beak 0.7 to 1.8 millimeters in length.

Habitat: Wet areas, marshes, shores, floodplains

Elevation: < 1200 m

Bioregions: se KR, CaR, n SNF, GV, CCo

California counties: Shasta, Butte, Tehama, Trinity, San Francisco, Siskiyou, San Joaquin, Mono, Ventura, Inyo, Colusa, Mariposa

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