Some Sedges at Mereworth Woods, TQ6353 and TQ6354

Along the roadside on Hurst Park Road, this could be more of the Grey Sedge, Carex divulsa, ssp divulsa, with its long slender inflorescence, somewhat shorter lowest bract and overall pale glumes; albeit each with a clear green midrib. Generally for these smaller loose tussocky sedges with drooping inflorescences I think we are looking at Remote Sedge or Grey Sedge, with the odd Spiked Sedge worming its way in from time to time, or so I imagine.

Here are two images of the same clump, one image without Tob's nosey and one with. Noting the dark green of the leaves, sometimes very shiny on the top surface, the overall paler narrow (appressed?) spikes on the spreading stems and the occasional few male spikelets at the top of at least the topmost spike.

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There were several stems taken from the roadside for a closer look, which seemed to more or less confirm the ID, especially the distant lower spikes, although other species and hybrids certainly cannot be eliminated. Issues with this ID are that the lowest bracts are sometimes longer than normally expected, but this is allowed for in the Jermy et al text and in some images I have seen, and that the utricles may develop looking brown to my eyes rather than the described "grey-black".  

However the overall inflorescence is difficult to match to any other species, and the female glumes show the overall pale almost transparent colour with the strong green midribs, acute or acuminate.

The utricles do start off whitish-green, biconvex, beaked, and could, I suppose, be described as diamond-shaped, and their outer bases certainly do show a degree of ribbing, as described.

Moving on to the bridleway. as usual there were fair numbers of individual scattered Pendulous Sedge, Carex pendula on the path-sides, and after this plant, there may have been both seedlings and a number of plants suppressed by drought and compaction that were a fraction of the normal size. 

 

The last species seen today along the path to the right was likely to have been the Wood Sedge, Carex sylvatica, as already listed by the BSBI, although perhaps I should have checked the ligules a little more carefully for the presence of the Thin Wood Sedge, Carex strigosa.