By Tom Schweich
Last week I wrote about American plum, a large shrub that you can see and smell a mile away when it is in bloom. This week let’s talk about something you must get down on your hands and knees just to see. It’s called “Sun Sedge” and has a long scientific name of Carex inops L.H. Bailey ssp. heliophila (Mack.) Crins. (“ssp.” means subspecies.)
This small, early blooming sedge is only 4 to 6 inches tall, but can be found throughout Golden’s open spaces, typically in open places where it can get a good start before the taller plants. It is often found in full sun and can tolerate some dryness. It spreads slowly by rhizomes (underground stems).
Its scientific name — Carex inops L.H. Bailey ssp. heliophila (Mack.) Crins — is very descriptive. “Carex” is an ancient Latin name for a sedge (not a grass); “inops” says it is small in Latin; and “heliophila” says it is a friend of the sun in Greek.
The flowers of sun sedge are not showy, although botanists who study sedges may disagree with me. Sedges are wind-pollinated, so the flowers do not have bright-colored petals or produce nectar to attract insects. In the inset above, there are staminate (male) flowers with cream-colored anthers, above pistillate (female) flowers with feathery white stigmas.
Sun sedge occurs across the entire prairie region of North America, from central Manitoba, Illinois, and Missouri to northern New Mexico, the Front Range of Colorado, and the Peace River District of eastern British Columbia.
As small as it is, sun sedge can be a dominant species in a number of ecosystems, such as many grasslands. What this little sedge lacks in size, it makes up for in sheer numbers of plants. On the prairies it is codominant with grasses such as western wheatgrass, big and little bluestem, needle-and-thread grass and other needlegrasses, and the various grama grasses.
Many types of animals consume this plant. It is considered a good forage for livestock because it is one of the first green plants to appear in the spring and animals such as cattle find it palatable. When we stayed at the goat farm near Buena Vista, I was very curious to see which meadow plants the goats preferred. I was surprised to see they would seek out and eat the sedges before eating the grasses.
In the garden, sun sedge spreads slowly, but is not invasive, and forms a low grass-like turf. Unfortunately, it can be difficult to find sun sedge in the nursery trade.
