Carex spectabilis / showy sedge

Adjectives: exposed, fen, grass, native, wet meadows

Note: grasses and grass-like plants have a nomenclature all their own, much different from that of dicots. A good resource/slide show from the University of Idaho on grass structures is available here.

It is a shame that sedges don’t show up in wildflower books because they are really rather attractive. So far, the only book I’ve  found that includes them is A Field Guide to Grasses and Grass-like Plants of Idaho (see the Resources page). It includes 10 species of sedge, but showy sedge didn’t make the cut. Oh well.

In any case, showy sedge grows in moist mountain habitats, but also on roadsides or in wet and seasonally flooded meadows in the Valley. The plants get up to two feet tall, in full or partly sunny conditions. The foliage, like that of many sedges, resembles iris leaves. Or, since it is “grass-like”, grass leaves. They are long, flat and shiny. The stems grow in clusters, sometimes from rhizomes.

The flower clusters are erect to heavily nodding and covered in dark purplish scales. At a minimum, they open in spring (early to mid-June in 2022). The flowers themselves are inconspicuous and yellow and various sources say that the flower stalk and bracts are green and more showy than the tiny flowers. I don’t fully understand this. Based on my photos and those on the Calscape site, when the flowers are open, I look for a two tone inflorescence, with white or purple below (the stigmas?) and yellow above (the anthers?).