The Book of Grasses 



like growth that borders country walls and fences. The whole 

 plant, stem, leaf, and flowering-spike, is slender and bends to 

 the slightest breeze. This sedge may be recognized by the green, 

 fertile spikes which are very narrow and droop from hair-like 

 peduncles. 



Fox Sedge {Carex vulpinotdea) is common in low grounds and 

 by waysides, and is not infrequently found in dry soil. The stout 

 stem is sharply three-angled and bears short, green or brownish 

 green spikes, which are densely crowded in clusters and form what 

 appears to be a rough, terminal spike two to five inches long. 



The Fescue Sedge {Carex festucacea) belongs to a group in which 

 there are several species that bear more or less resemblance to one 

 another. In these sedges the short, densely flowered spikes are 

 round or oblong and are borne rather closely together at the 

 summit of the stem. Fescue Sedge blooms in spring and early 

 summer and is most frequently seen in dry soil. 



The above species of the genus Carex are but a few of the most 

 common sedges that may be found in many locations from Canada 

 to the Gulf. The majority of these plants bloom during spring 

 and summer, although many of them retain their ripened seeds 

 during the autumn months. The sedges, no less than the grasses, 

 have developed many interesting peculiarities of structure which 

 aid in transporting the seeds to new fields: a few of the sedges 

 growing in dry soil show wing-margined seed-pouches that are 

 easily carried by the wind; some bear rough pouches that catch on 

 passers-by and are carried far; sedges of marshlands often float 

 their seeds in inflated sacs along the water's surface or buoy them 

 by corky growths to which the base of the seed is attached. None 

 of Nature's children are so lowly that she neglects to prepare them 

 for the world-long struggle for existence, and the methods which 

 these humble forms have developed in order to enter into success- 

 ful competition with the crowding life around them show the rest- 

 less energy of living matter in its effort to exist and to perpetuate 

 itself in life. 



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