Carex arctata Boott ex Hook.

Drooping wood sedge, drooping woodland sedge

Similar species

	You are here Carex arctata	Carex gracillima
Common Name	drooping wood sedge	graceful sedge
Plant	Occurring in dense tufts, plants are up to 3′ (1 m) high.	8–36″ (20–91 cm) high.
Leaves	Basal or nearly so. Grasslike leaves are ⅛–⅜″ (3–10 mm) wide. At the base, they are encased in a sheath that is pink to reddish purple. Younger leaves have an ‘M’ or ‘W’-shaped cross-section.	Basal, ⅛–⅜″ (3–10 mm) wide, and alternate. Leaves may be smooth or rough in texture. A sheath at the base of the plant is often red or purple in color.
Flowers	Male (staminate) and female (pistillate) spikes are separate. The topmost spike is unisexual, staminate, ⅞–3 ⨉ 1/16–⅛″ (2.5–8 cm ⨉ 3–4 mm). 2-5 pistillate (also called carpellate) spikes appear lower on the stem. Each spike is up to 3″ (8 cm) long, and slender. Young spikes point upward, but they droop with age.	A stalk emerging above the leaves, 8–35″ (20–90 cm) long, contains both carpellate (seed-bearing) and staminate (pollen-bearing) flowers, with the carpellate ones uppermost. Each stalk has 2-5 spikes, each on a stem up to 1½″ (4 cm) long. Each spike is ⅜–2½″ (1–7 cm) × 1/16–⅛″ (2–3.5 mm) in size.
Fruit	Achenes are ~1/16″ long ⨉ 1/32–1/16″ wide (1.7–2.6 ⨉ 0.8–1.7 mm).	Carpellate spikes form seed clusters called achenes. Each such cluster is wrapped in a perigynium. They appear from late spring to mid-summer.
Range/ Zones
Habitats	Rich, damp forested areas.	Common in damp forests and meadows

Carex arctata description by Thomas H. Kent, not updated.

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