194 Field, Forest, and Wayside Flowers 
Most of our native sedges. belong to one great 
group, the genus Carex. Its various members 
generally grow in moist places and blossom in the 
spring, so that their seeds are set, and often 
ripened, too, by midsummer. 
“‘A carex” can be recognized afield by the tyro, 
but the correct identification of the particular carex 
in question is quite another matter. For the species 
are so difficult to distinguish one from another, vary 
so perplexingly, and blend into one another so 
confusingly, that they can confound the experienced 
naturalist. In most carices the stamens and pistils 
are borne in separate flowers, which grow upon the 
same plant. 
In one large section of them the two kinds of 
flowers grow on the same spike, which is staminate 
at its apex, and pistillate below, or, as Tweedle- 
dee was wont to remark, ‘‘ contrariwise.”’ 
In another large section the staminate flowers 
grow in a spike by themselves, at the tip-top of 
the sedge, while the pistillate blossoms, in modest 
groups, occupy lower places (Fig. 53). 
Each flower of either sex is sheltered and al- 
most concealed by a green scale. The staminate 
flowers have no calyces nor corollas at all, not 
even reminiscent ones of saw-blades or bristles. 
