Long Bracted Sedge

 

Mediterranean region and western desert.

Western and northwest Europe, Mediterranean region, Sinai, Black Sea coasts, Sara Island in the Caspian Sea.

Salt marshes.

Perennial.

Foodplant / parasite
pycnium of Aster tripolium parasitises live Carex extensa

Foodplant / saprobe
immersed pseudothecium of Didymella proximella is saprobic on dead leaf of Carex extensa
Remarks: season: 3-7

Foodplant / parasite
telium of Puccinia dioicae var. extensicola parasitises live Carex extensa

Carex extensa Gooden. Trans. Linn. Soc. 2: 175 pi. 21, f. 7. 1794.
Carex flava var. Huds. Fl. Angl. 407. 1762. (Type from England.)
Carex nervosa Desf. Fl. Atlant. 2: 337. 1800. (Type from northwestern Africa.)
Carex arcuala Wahl. Sv. Vet. -Akad. Nya Handl. 24: 151, as synonym. 1803. (Type from Gothland.)
Carex Balbisii Spreng. Pug. 2: 86. 1815.
Carex extensa var. tenuifolia DC. Fl. Fr. 6: 292. 1815. (Type from France.)
Trasus extensus S. F. Gray, Nat. Arr. Brit. PI. 2: 61. 1821. (Based on Carex extensa Gooden.)
Trasus extensus var. cylindraceus S. F. Gray. Nat. Arr. Brit. PI. 2:61. 1821. (Type from England.)
Carex Ecklonii var. Nees, Linnaea 10: 203. 1835. (Type from southern Africa.)
Carex extensa var. Balbisii Reichenb. Ic. Fl. Germ. 8 : 30. pi. 274, f. 656. 1846. (Based on C. Balbisii
Spreng.) Carex extensa f. pumila Anderss. Cyp. Scand. 26. 1849. (Type from Scandinavia.) Carex liltoralis Wulfen, Fl. Norica Phan. 771. 1858. (Type from central Europe.) Not C. liltoralis
Krock, 1814; nor C. liltoralis Schw. 1824. Carex microdonta var. conlroversa L. H. Bailey, Proc. Am. Acad. 22: 110. 1886. (Type from San
Pablo, Mexico.) Carex extensa var. graeca Hausskn. Mitth. Thiir. Bot. Ver. II. 13/14:36. 1899. (Type from Greece.) Carex extensa var. nana Husnot, Cyp. 48. 1905. Carex extensa f. "Balbisii Reichenb." Kiikenth. in Engler, Pflanzenreich 4 20 : 667. 1909. (Based on
C. Balbisii Spreng.) Carex extensa f. tenuifolia "DC." Kiikenth. in Engler, Pflanzenreich 4 20 : 667. 1909. (Based on C.
extensa var. tenuifolia DC.)
Densely cespitose, the rootstocks very short, the clumps medium-sized, the culms 1.5-6 dm. high, slender, stiff, leafy, from shorter than to exceeding the leaves, phyllopodic, obtusely triangular, smooth, dark-reddish-brown-tinged at base; sterile shoots aphyllopodic, conspicuous, elongate ; leaves with well-developed blades several to a fertile culm, the lower more or less bunched, not septate-nodulose, the blades 1-2.5 dm. long, 1-2 mm. wide, glaucous-green, thick, stiff, usually strongly canaliculate, the sheaths smooth, hyaline and red-dotted ventrally, concave at mouth, the ligule short; staminate spike sessile or very short-peduncled, linear, 1-2.5 cm. long, 2-3 mm. wide, the scales oblong-obovate, obtusish or acutish, reddishbrown with straw-colored 3-nerved center and narrow hyaline margins; pistillate spikes 2 or 3, all erect and sessile or nearly so, contiguous or more or less strongly separate, occasionally one much separated, oblong, 7-20 mm. long, 6-8 mm. wide, closely 15-50-flowered, the perigynia ascending or spreading in several to many rows; bracts leaflet-like, spreading or ascending, usually exceeding the culms, the upper usually very short-sheathing, short-prolonged ventrally at mouth, the lower long-sheathing; scales ovate, cuspidate to acute, about as wide as but much shorter than the perigynia, copper-brown with greenish 3-nerved center and minutely hyaline margins; perigynia ovoid, 3-4 mm. long, 2 mm. wide, obscurely triangular in crosssection, scarcely inflated, subcoriaceous, light-olive-green, purplish-puncticulate, strongly about 10-ribbed, rounded at base and sessile, tapering into a smooth-margined, flattened-conic, short, bidentate beak 0.75 mm. long, with reddish-brown tip; achenes obovoid, 2 mm. long, 1.5 mm. wide, triangular with concave sides, rather closely enveloped, yellowish-brown, substipitate, slenderly bent-apiculate, jointed with the straight slender style; stigmas 3, reddishbrown, slender, short.
Type locality: "Habitat in palustribus prope Harwich — on the marshy part of Braunton Burrows in Devonshire," England.
Distribution: Naturalized from Europe on the borders of salt meadows, Coney Island and Far Rockaway, New York; and Norfolk, Virginia. Also naturalized at San Pablo, Vera Cruz, Mexico (Gregg). Widely distributed in Europe and northern Africa. (Specimens examined from stations given in New York, Virginia, and Vera Cruz.)

Carex extensa is a species of sedge known by the common name long-bracted sedge. It is native to Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East.