Some Sedges

 

Just by the car park in Dene Park there is an area of grassland where puddles collect above the banks in winter. By one of them is one, and only one, moderate clump of the Spiky Sedge, Carex spicata (Huds). There are two stigmas, the utricles are the right shape, not obviously ribbed, the glumes, or some at least are brown with a central green midrib or wider area, the spikelets are not too distantly spaced, the leaves are the right length, diameter and appear to end in flat tips, the ligules are the right length and shape to separate this from the other members of the Carex muricata group. 

But I cannot see any evidence of vinaceous red on any of the parts, at least as yet. Also, the lower bracts are not really as glumaceous (?) as they are depicted in Jermy et al. 

And this is the end of May, this should not have finished flowering yet!

Scattered through the woodland are clumps of the Wood Sedge, Carex sylvatica (Huds), sometimes in apparently very dry areas. Found in woodlands or possibly where woodlands used to be - maybe thought to be an ancient woodland indicator! Often found on the sides of tracks or in ruts. This is a clump, just the one, from the area of Beech/Oak to the East of the car park. I worried for a while that I might have mistaken this for the Thin-spiked Wood Sedge Carex strigosa (Huds) as the female spikelets did not appear to be pendulous at least at this stage, but the peduncles are clearly too long for that. Well worth double checking though.  Good to see the bright mid-green of the leaves.

Concentrated around one of the junctions of the main circuit, and with a couple of plants also along the Fox Wood path, is the large and distinctive Pendulous Sedge, Carex pendula (Huds). I don't think there is anything else like this on wet and heavy nutrient-rich clay soils. Note the saw-toothed leaves and the long leaf-like bracts subtending the shortly pedunculate but pendulous female spikelets, as well as the untidy terminal male spikelet. Again, possibly fruiting early.   

This is a much more tightly cropped view of the inflorescence shown above.

Along the Fox Wood path, where the pond/partly dammed stream lies out in the field, around the edge there is a good dominating stand of the Greater Pond Sedge, Carex riparia (Curtis), confirmed by the shape of the developing utricles.

A closer view of an inflorescence

These plants were seen previously in 2024, but that was later in the season, with the utricles better developed:

Further downstream, and back in the wood, where the path crosses the culverted stream, there is a uniform patch of the Remote Sedge, Carex remota (L). The spread-out nature of the spikelets in the overall inflorescence is fairly diagnostic (I hope, apart from the Grey sedge, Carex divulsa ssp divulsa (Stokes) to be expected on drier soils probably) and it was nice to see this patch on the softer organic low-lying soil to the side of the stream.