About Carex livida (Wahlenb.) Willd.
This sedge, Carex livida, grows in small clumps with stems reaching 50 to 55 centimeters tall. Its leaves are stiff, leathery, pale waxy blue-gray, and have channels along their surfaces. Its inflorescence holds separate female (pistillate) and male (staminate) spikes. The species spreads mostly by sprouting new growth from its rhizome, though it also produces seeds. Carex livida has a scattered, interrupted circumboreal distribution, found across much of Eurasia and northern North America. It also grows in Panama and South America, and is currently extirpated in California. This plant grows in wet substrates where groundwater sits at the surface. Its typical growing soils are often calcareous and high in nitrogen. It is most commonly found in fens and bogs alongside sphagnum mosses and other sedge species.
