Family: sedges (Cyperaceae)
Flowering time: April–June
Size: 10–40 cm
Habitat: alkaline low bogs and damp meadows
Thin stems of the delicate sedge (Carex davalliana) form dense, firm tufts. Leaves are shorter than the stem, and the plants are always without offshoots. At the top of the rough three-angled stem develops one, 1–2 cm long, slightly branched inflorescence – a spikelet. Because the delicate sedge is a dioecious plant, on one plant typically only female spikelets develop, on the other only male spikelets. For the female flower two grooves are characteristic. Mature fruits – nuts, enclosed by a covering called a husk, protrude almost perpendicularly to the axis of the inflorescence. It grows on moist, barren soils on an alkaline substrate scattered across central and northern Slovenia.
In Slovenia it is listed among endangered species, as it is tied to sensitive habitats that, mainly due to human interventions, are still disappearing.
