sedges: problem 2

I started at my house (which as of YESTERDAY is mine. not mine and the bank’s. MINE. paid that sucker off YESTERDAY. Still wearing my party hat.)

Uh, anyway. I started at my house and walked toward a little pond at the end of the driveway and then back away from the road and collected some samples, one of which, according to my notes, was a sedge.

I’m going with C. gynandra.

Then the next day i went for a walk up in the Preston Pond Conservation area, on the west side near the beaver pond. Of course i forgot my camera so there are no pictures of the samples in situ.

I wrestled with this one a long time and still don’t know what it is. Something maybe in phacocystis?

Both of these specimens are from the margin of the beaver pond. The left page i THINK is a group one, and if i got that correct, it’s probably from sect. Ovales and i tentatively settled on C. scoparia.

The right side sketch has an error that had to be crossed out. It is not a weird spikelet or fancy bract. This is a small, slender plant and it’s drawn more or less actual size. The little star-shaped spikelets separated along the stem make it, i think,  group 1, sect. Stellulate?  So i’m going to guess C. interior.

These two specimens are also from the area next to the beaverpond. On the left is a graceful plant that i put into group 3 on account of unisexual cylindrical spikelets. I’m tentatively calling it a C.baileyi.

I got all excited at the one on the right because OH LOOK! It’s really different and has all these fuzzy little spikelets on the one stem at the top and surely that will be easy! (insert hollow, bitter laugh here) after staring it in the face for the better part of a week, i am uncertain at best what to call it. I think it’s maybe an eriophorum, and possible E. virginicum?

This week i am coming out from under the anvil of overwhelmedness and starting to see some system here. I don’t have much to say to your posts because outside of “yep, that’s a C. lurida”, i don’t have much useful to say yet. I do read everything you post, and i look at your photos and diagrams, and you are helping me learn to think about both the sedges and how to make good observations.

One thing  i have learned is that i will need to pay more attention to the root systems and habitats.