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Black-spike sedge

Carex atrata

Also called Black Alpine Sedge, Blackened Sedge

Black-spike sedge
Photo: Carl Axel Magnus Lindman, Public domain

Black-spike sedge (Carex atrata) is a tufted perennial sedge of cool, high-altitude and northern habitats across Europe and temperate Asia. It is best suited to cold climates and needs a cool, moist, sunny site to do well.

Family
Cyperaceae (Cyper family)
Grows as
Grass
Light
Full sun, Part shade
Water
Keep the soil evenly moist during the growing season and avoid letting it dry out completely.
Soil
Moist, humus-rich, well-drained soil; tolerates lime and poor soils.
Temperature
Hardy to very cold winters; best in cool conditions, struggles in prolonged heat.
How easy
Moderate
Native range
Greenland, Temp. Eurasia to N. Indo-China
Climate
temperate

About

Carex atrata, called black alpine sedge, is a widespread species of flowering plant in the genus Carex, native to Greenland, Iceland, and most of Europe, plus scattered locations across temperate Asia, including Anatolia, Siberia and the Himalaya, as far as Taiwan and Japan. Its chromosome number is 2n=52, with some variants reported, e.g. n2=54 for Greenland material.

Other Carex plants

Carex alba · Tall Sedge · Asian Shortstem Sedge · Hair-like sedge · Carex curvula · Common Yellow Sedge · Dioecious sedge · Teasel Sedge · Grassland sedge · Carex dolichostachya · Tufted Sedge · Elongated sedge

Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Carex atrata by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.

The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.

Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.

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