30 Days Wild 2022: Day 12a: Carex leporina - Grasses and Sedges and Rushes at Blencathra part 2.

We spent the second morning of the two day "Grasses, Sedges and Rushes" course inside looking at sedge structure.  (See day one here)

There are over 4500 members of the Sedge family - Cyperaceae family - in the world, and the Sedge genus Carex is one genus in this family. 

I had collected some Oval Sedge - Carex leporina (formerly Carex ovalis) from the rush pasture in front of the field centre before breakfast. Some of this pasture has just been planted with new trees.

Carex leporina belongs to the Vignea group  of Carex, where each spike has both male and female flowers. I  sometimes blithely say "In the Vignea group the male and female flowers are all mixed together in each spike. - but this oversimplifies it. In fact in some species of Carex the male flowers are at the top of each spike, and in some cases the male flowers are at the bottom. 

Each spike is made of lots of flowers. Each flower has a brown glume (scale) with either make or female parts inside.

Can you see where the male flowers (with anthers) are on this spike?

And where the female flowers with (now brownish) stigmas are?

Carex leporina on mm graph paper

I  like the name C ovalis better better.  It has oval shaped spikes
the whole head of several spikes is oval shaped,

It grows in oval shaped tufts. The shoots at the perimeter of the tuft grow at an angle radiating from the centre - as if they have been bent by being trodden on.

In the afternoon we went to the south end of Derwentwater. . but I'll write about that shortly.

I am looking forward to teaching a Grasses and Sedges and Rushes course at Millport on the island of Cumbrae near Glasgow on 25 June