Florapass
English
Star Sedge

Star Sedge

Carex echinata

Identify the Star Sedge from a photo and log your finds with Florapass.

Coming soon to the App Store and Google Play.

How common: Common

Star Sedge is a small, tuft-forming sedge of wet places. It has very narrow, shiny green leaves and round heads that look starry when the many small seed cases spread out. You can spot it in swamps, bog margins, wet meadows and along shores and ditches.

Did you know?

  • Its name comes from the star-like look of its seed heads.
  • It is pollinated by the wind.

About the species

Identification

Small, tuft-forming sedge 10–40 cm tall. Stems upright, stiff and smooth. Leaves almost as long as the stems, very narrow (about 1–2.5 mm), firm and shiny green. The flower cluster is open and sparse, 1.5–3.5 cm long, with 3–6 small round heads spaced along the top. Each head carries tiny flowers that later develop into many small, flat, green seed cases that spread out; as they ripen to yellow-brown they make each head look like a little star. This starry look, plus the narrow shiny leaves and tidy tufts, helps tell it from other sedges. Flowers in Finland in June–July.

Plant group

Grasses, sedges and rushes

Habitat

mire

Flowering

Jun–Jul

About the habitat

Grows in wet woods and swampy ground, along the edges of bogs, on shores, and in wet meadows, pastures and ditches. Common in southern and central Finland, scarcer in the northeast, and absent in the far north.

Sources

Photo: Krzysztof Ziarnek, Kenraiz, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Carex echinata kz06.jpg

Text: Pinkka: Kasvitieteen retkeily Ahvenanmaalle - Nåtö ja Västerskog, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.40305

Text: Pinkka (Luomus), CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.40305

Text: Pinkka: A Pohjolan kasveja - Carex, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.40305

Text: Wikipedia (Finnish), CC BY-SA 4.0 https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C3%A4htisara

See also