14 Nebraskaland • May 2019
PHOTO
BY
CHRIS
HELZER
IN THE FIELD
SUN SEDGE
By Chris Helzer
In many Nebraska prairies, the first colorful flower in the
spring isn't a wildflower, it's a tiny sedge. Sun sedge (Carex
heliophila) is one of the most common plants in Sandhills
prairies, as well as many other upland grasslands around the
state. However, because of its diminutive size, it blends into
its background well enough that someone walking through
those prairies would be excused for not noticing it at all.
When it blooms, though, its yellow flowers appear like tiny
lanterns against a backdrop of drab brown grasses.
Despite being small, sun sedge plants play an important
role in the ecology of grasslands, especially as a food source
during the dormant season. Most grasses enter dormancy
by October and don't green up again until at least April,
especially in the northern parts of Nebraska. Sun sedge, on
the other hand, can stay green well into the winter and starts
growing much earlier than grasses in the spring. Because of
that extended growing season, sun sedge provides live forage
to both livestock and wildlife during the colder months of the
year, nicely complementing the cured grasses those animals
otherwise rely on. It is joined by a few other small upland
sedge species, depending upon location, including needleleaf
sedge (C. eleocharis) and blackroot sedge (C. filifolia), both
of which occur in tighter clusters than the more scattered
plants of sun sedge.
