Suomi
Svenska
Few-Flowered Sedge
Carex pauciflora
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Few-Flowered Sedge is a small, slender sedge of wet, acidic bogs. It has a single, short flower head with only a few flowers and very thin, grass-like leaves. You often see it on sphagnum moss hummocks in open mires.
Did you know?
- Its flower head carries only a few flowers — the reason for its name.
- It is wind‑pollinated and, in bogs, its dead remains slowly help build peat.
About the species
Identification
Slender, usually single-stemmed plant 10–20 cm tall. Stem thin, stiff, upright, sometimes slightly bent at the base. Leaves few and shorter than the stem, thread-thin (about 1 mm), with pale brown leaf bases near the ground. One small head (about 0.5–1 cm) at the tip. It bears only a few flowers; the lower ones become narrow pods about 5–7 mm long that first stand up, then droop and fall. Easy to tell from other small sedges by the single tiny head with very few flowers and the thread-like leaves. Flowers in Finland in June–July.
Plant group
Grasses, sedges and rushes
Habitat
mire
Flowering
Jun–Jul
About the habitat
Lives in nutrient-poor peatlands: sphagnum bogs and poor fens, wet conifer bogs, and springy swamps, often on moss hummocks and wet peat. Common in most of Finland; scarcer in Åland and the far northwest of Lapland.
Sources
Photo: Iida Österman, CC BY 4.0 https://www.gbif.org/occurrence/6398786434
Text: Pinkka: Kasvitieteen retkeily Ahvenanmaalle - Nåtön luontopolku, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.40426
Text: Pinkka (Luomus), CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.40426
Text: Pinkka: A Pohjolan kasveja - Carex, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.40426
Text: Wikipedia (Finnish), CC BY-SA 4.0 https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rahkasara
