Greater Brown Sedge

Tufted perennial, 60-90 cm. Rhizome horizontal or ascending, black-brown, short internodes covered by soon fibrous scales and remains of old shoots. Stems noded, trigonous, smooth. Leaves from half to c. 2/3 of stem length; sheaths 25-70 mm, grey or reddish brown, finally fibrous and almost black, margin slightly concave; ligule short, brown, arch lower than wide; blades 2-4 mm wide, keeled, flat or carinate, grey-green, scabrous along margins. Inflorescence of 4-8 partial inflorescences in leaf axils; bracts green, lowest longer than its partial inflorescence; partial inflorescences branched or unbranched, of 1-5 spikes, lower often large, peduncles to 12 cm; spikes up to 35 mm, lax, pedunculate, erect or nodding. Utricles c. 3 mm, ellipsoid, conspicuously nerved, margins and nerves barbed, stipe short, beak c. 1 mm, ostiole oblique. Stigmas 2.

Distribution: From Mascarenes and Mauritius to Pakistan, Kashmir, India and further to Japan, China, Malesia, E. Australia and Lord Howe Island.

Carex brunnea, the greater brown sedge, is a small species of plant found in many parts of Asia, as well as eastern Australia and Lord Howe Island. This plant is often seen in disturbed, sunny areas in and near rainforest. This is one of many plants described by Robert Brown and was published in his Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae et Insulae Van Diemen (1810). Brown recorded the type "(J.) v.v." Brown's name of Carex gracilis was ruled invalid, as the plant had previously appeared in scientific literature in 1784. Published by the Swedish naturalist Carl Peter Thunberg, in Murray's Systema Vegetabilium, 14th edition.