Carex echinata

Hedgehog sedge ( Carex echinata )

The Hedgehog sedge ( Carex echinata ), also called Star Sedge, is a species in the genus of sedges and thus the family of Sedge family ( Cyperaceae ).

Description

The Hedgehog sedge is a perennial plant that forms dense or loose grass. Its stalk is erect or bent and 5-90 cm high, truncated triangular, very smooth or rough below the inflorescence. The leaves are 1-2.5 mm wide and shorter than the stems. The inflorescence is 1.5-3 cm long and consists of 3-5 separate standing spikelets, which are separated up to 7 mm apart. The spikelets are sessile, spherical or ovoid and 4-7 mm long and as wide. Enter at the bottom of the male and female flowers above 5-11. By sparrig protruding tubes that 3-4 mm long, longer than the glumes and are narrowed upwards into a bidentate beak, see the spikelets like little morning star. The husks are 2 mm long, brown, with a green keel and white skin edges. The female flowers have two scars. The fruit is yellow-brown to brown. The Hedgehog sedge blooms from May to June. She has the chromosome number 2n = 56 or 58

Occurrence

The Hedgehog sedge grows on wet, calcium-poor sandy- clayey marsh soils in fens, ditches and in wet meadows bins. It rises in the Alps up to 2460 m. Their range extends from Europe, the Azores, Morocco and the Caucasus to Eastern Siberia, Japan, China, Australia, New Zealand, North and Central America. The East Asian and North American plants are but sometimes also counted among closely related species.