GREAT PRICKLY SEDGE 



61 



ground occurs. It grows in moist hollows by the roadside, around 

 ponds, pools, and in ditches, as well as more generally and profusely in 

 wet meadows, marshes, and bogs. 



The stems are few, 3-angled, with sharp, rough edges and convex 

 sides, from a tufted base, and stoloniferous, with creeping runners. 

 The leaves are rather broad and flat, glossy, and fairly long. 



The flowers are in a 

 more or less cylindrical 

 compound spike with 

 many crowded flowers, 

 the male ones above, 

 spreading, with bristle- 

 like bracts which are 

 longer than the spike, and 

 suberect. The fruit is 

 egg-shaped, coming to a 

 sharp point, plano-convex, 

 pale-green, with an egg- 

 shaped, brownish nut. 

 The glumes are pale- 

 brown, with a roughish 

 awn. This tall sedge is 

 i-i^ ft. or more in height. 

 Flowers are found in May, 

 up till August. The plant 

 is a perennial, propagated 

 by suckers. 



This common sedge 

 has a floral mechanism 

 similar to C. paniculata, 

 and is likewise proterogyn- 



ous and pollinated by the wind. The fruit is a nut, and when it 

 is ripe it falls to the ground close to the parent plant. 



Great Prickly Sedge is a peat-loving plant growing in a peat soil, 

 or pelophilous and flourishes on clay soil. 



Beetles are commonly found on this and allied sedges, e.g. Dromius 

 longiceps, D. sigma, Donacia obscura, D. thalassina, D. impressa, D. 

 vulgaris, D. affinis, Chastocnema Sahlbergi. Several Lepidoptera are 

 fond of sedges, such as Smoky Wainscot (Leucania impura), Small 

 Wainscot (Nonagria fulva], Hydrelia incana, Gold Spot (Plusia 

 festucce), Elachista gleichenella, E. kilmunella* E. rhynchosporella, E. 



Photo. Flatters & Garnett 



GREAT PRICKLY SEDGE (Carex vnlpina, L.) 



