Ornamental grasses are grasses grown as ornamental plants. Ornamental grasses are popular in many colder hardiness zones for their resilience to cold temperatures and aesthetic value throughout fall and winter seasons.
Carex is a vast genus of more than 2,000 species of grass-like plants in the family Cyperaceae, commonly known as sedges. Other members of the family Cyperaceae are also called sedges, however those of genus Carex may be called true sedges, and it is the most species-rich genus in the family. The study of Carex is known as caricology.
Carex flacca, with common names blue sedge, gray carex, glaucous sedge, or carnation-grass,, is a species of sedge native to parts of Europe and North Africa. It is frequent in a range of habitats, including grasslands, moorlands, exposed and disturbed soil, and the upper edges of salt marshes. It has naturalized in eastern North America.
Carex festucacea, or fescue sedge, is a species of sedge that lives in eastern North America. It has been described as "a soft, gray green, wisp, to 2', with narrow leaves and somewhat taller stems, topped by an interrupted spike, with lower spikelets, shaped a bit like an overflowing ice cream cone. The spike axis is often arched at the summit, but the alternating spikelets around the axis create a zig zag appearance. The seed sacs have a humped shoulder."
Carex scoparia is a species of sedge known by the common names broom sedge and pointed broom sedge. It should not be confused with the unrelated grass species known as "broom sedge," Andropogon virginicus.
Carex pensylvanica is a species of flowering plant in the sedge family commonly called Pennsylvania sedge. Other common names include early sedge, common oak sedge, and yellow sedge.
Carex oronensis is a species of sedge known by the common name Orono sedge. It is endemic to Maine in the United States, where it occurs mainly in the Penobscot River Valley. It is the only plant that is endemic to the state of Maine. The type locality is Orono.
Carex panicea, commonly known as carnation sedge, is a plant species in the sedge family, Cyperaceae. It is known as grass-like sedge and can be found in Northern and Western Europe, and also in north-eastern North America. The plant produces fruits which are 3–4 millimetres (0.12–0.16 in) long, are egg shaped and spiked. Both male and female species leaves are pale blue on both sides.
Carex lacustris, known as lake sedge, is a tufted grass-like perennial of the sedge family (Cyperaceae), native to southern Canada and the northern United States. C. lacustris us an herbaceous surface-piercing plant that grows in water up to 50 cm (1.6 ft) deep, and grows 50–150 cm (1.6–4.9 ft) tall. It grows well in marshes and swampy woods of the boreal forest, along river and lake shores, in ditches, marshes, swamps, and other wetland habitat. It grows on muck, sedge peat, wet sand or silt, in filtered or full sunlight.
Carex bulbostylis, known as the false hair sedge, is a species of sedge native to the southcentral and southeastern United States. It was first formally named by Kenneth Mackenzie in 1915. It is also known as the eastern narrowleaf sedge, thick style sedge, and globose sedge.
Carex conjuncta, known as soft fox sedge, is a species of sedge that was first formally named by Francis Boott in 1862. It is endemic to the central and eastern United States.
Carex abscondita, the thicket sedge, is a North American species of sedge first described by Kenneth Mackenzie in 1910. It grows along the central and eastern United States, from eastern Texas to southern Missouri, east to the Atlantic coast, and north to New Hampshire. It grows in moist areas of forests, shrublands, and swamps.
Carex lupuliformis, common name false hop sedge, is a perennial sedge of sporadic distribution found in the floodplain forests and ephemeral woodland ponds of central and eastern North America. The species typically produces four to seven leaves with sheaths of distal leaves of 3 to 21 cm whose ligules are rounded to triangular. Carex lupuliformis blooms between early June and early October, typically with "two to six proximal female spikes, distal spikes usually crowded, ascending, densely flowered, usually cylindric, much longer than broad; one to two terminal male spikes." Fruiting occurs between late July through early October. Fruit is described as "perigynia ascending to spreading, inflated, strongly veined, sessile, lance-ovoid, shiny, glabrous; beak conical; achenes stipitate, broadly diamond-shaped, scarcely if at all longer than wide, concave faces, angles thickened, prominently knobbed with hard, nipplelike points."
Carex rariflora, the looseflower alpine sedge, is a species of plant in the sedge family. It is found in the United States in Alaska and Maine, and in Canada in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. In these regions, it is ranked as an obligate hydrophyte in establishing wetland areas. It prefers wet environments such as open bogs, meadows, seepage slopes, and low-elevation heath tundra. This perennial grass, which can be up to 3 feet tall, has fibrous roots, and holds all perennial organs underground. The leaves are alternate, long, narrow, and simple, with parallel veins. They grow in dense clusters, and the dead leaves are found at the base of the plant. The plant blooms and fruits in the summer. All flowers are monoecious and unisexual, producing a spike inflorescence. All inflorescences are subtended by shorter, proximal bracts.
Carex alopecoidea, common names foxtail sedge and northern fox sedge, is a species of Carex native to North America. It is listed as threatened in Connecticut. It is listed as endangered in Indiana, New Jersey, Ohio, as possibly extirpated in Maine, as threatened in Massachusetts, and as endangered and possibly extirpated in Tennessee.
Carex polymorpha common names variable sedge and many forms sedge, is a perennial species of Carex native to North America.
Carex prairea, common name prairie sedge, is a species of Carex native to North America. It is a perennial.
Carex sterilis, common names dioecious sedge, sterile sedge and Atlantic sedge, is a perennial plant native to North America.
Carex flexuosa, commonly called flexuous white-edge sedge, or Rudge's white-edge sedge, is a species of flowering plant in the sedge family, Cyperaceae. It is native to the eastern North America, where it is found in eastern Canada, the northeastern and midwestern United States, and southward in the Appalachian Mountains. Its natural habitat is in upland forests, rock outcrops, and Appalachian balds. It is typically found in areas with acidic soil.
Carex baileyi is a sedge in section Vesicariae the genus Carex native to the Appalachian mountains in Eastern North America. It is commonly called Bailey's sedge. Carex baileyi was named in honor of Liberty Hyde Bailey by its discoverer, Nathaniel_Lord_Britton.
