Remote sedge
Scientific Name: Carex remota L.
Family: Cyperaceae
MORPHOLOGY
Habit and Dimensions: Herbaceous perennial plant, 30-60 cm tall, with dense tufts wrapped at the base by brown sheaths.
Stem: Triangular stem, erect, slender, and curved, rough towards the top.
Leaves: Soft, flat leaves, shorter than the stem, 1.5-2 mm wide.
Flowers: Inflorescence expanded and elongated, 4-15 cm long, composed of many spikelets inserted at the top, the lower ones very spaced out; sometimes the inflorescence may appear contracted and abbreviated. Egg-shaped hermaphrodite spikelets, 5-6 mm, greenish-yellow with male flowers below and female flowers above. Oval, acute, greenish or translucent glumes with a green central vein. Blooms between April and July.
Fruits and Seeds: The fruits are achenes (utricle) 3-3.5 x 1.3 mm, oval, flat-convex with 3-5 veins on the inner face and 5-8 on the outer convex face, yellowish-brown, with a beak of 0.7-0.8 mm, rough, divided into 2 lobes. Achenes 1.4-1.6 x 1-1.1 mm, obovate or elliptical, flat-convex or biconvex, brown.
DISTRIBUTION AND HABITAT
Present throughout Italy, once common, now rare. It grows in moist woods, especially ash woods but also Alnus glutinosa scrub, stream banks, in generally shaded environments on waterlogged soil. Found between 0 and 1,300 m.
Photo: Under the free license of Saxifraga and Rutger Barendse, Peter Meininger, Hans Boll.
