Description
Craw's Sedge is a perennial grass-like plant with a single or several stems, 1-3 dm high, which arise together from creeping rhizomes. The flat leaves, 1-3 mm wide, are mainly clustered near the base of the plant. 15-50 female flowers are clustered in cylindrical spikes, 1-2 cm long, and borne singly on stalks arising from the upper leaves (bracts). Male flowers are clustered together in the uppermost spike. Scales subtending the individual female flowers (perigynia) are shorter and narrower than the perigynia and are brown and membranous with a pale, thickened midvein. Elliptic, glabrous perigynia are pale green to light brown, often with reddish speckles, and 2-4 mm long. There are 3 stigmas, and the seed is triangular in cross-section.
From CNHP Wetland Guide 2012: Habit: culms arising singly or few together from well developed, creeping rhizomes. Culms: slender but stiff, 0.8-3(4) dm tall, exceeding the leaves, slightly phyllopodic. Leaves: 6-12. Blades: stiff, thick, flat, usually recurved-spreading, roughened on the margins towards the apex, 1.5-3 mm wide. Sheaths: tight, hyaline ventrally, occasionally brown-dotted toward the mouth. Bracts: lowest leaflike with well-developed sheath, shorter than inflorescence. Spikes: 3-5, narrowly oblong to cylindric, short- to long pedunculate, green to brown. Terminal: Staminate, pedunculate, 1-3 cm long, 2-3 mm wide. Lateral: Pistillate or androgynous, 1-3 cm long, 5-6 mm wide, closely flowered, widely separate, the lowest often nearly basal; perigynia 10-45, ascending. Pistillate Scales: broadly ovate with midrib often excurrent, equaling or narrower and shorter than the perigynia, reddish brown with hyaline margins and green center. Perigynia: ovoid or oblong-ovoid, rounded at sessile base, abruptly contracted at apex, somewhat terete, 2-3.5 mm long, 1.25-2 mm wide. Nerves: obscure to coarse on both faces, numerous. Beaks: straight, entire or minutely bidentulate, 0.4 mm long. Stigmas: 3
Diagnostic Characteristics
From CNHP Wetland Guide 2012: Main Characteristics:
Perigynia elliptic, light green to tan, often with reddish speckles
Rhizomatous, the shoots single
Terminal spike staminate, pedunculate
Widely spaced spikes
Pistillate scales broadly ovate with midrib often excurrent, equaling or shorter than perigynia, reddish brown with hyaline margins and green center
Styles 3
Habitat
Carex crawei grows in "dry to usually moist, open ground, often associated with calcareous gravels or limestone pavements, in wet meadows, fens, prairie swales, beach pools, shores and glades, less commonly edges of white-cedar thickets, prairie patches along rights-of-way, streams, ditches, and quarries" (FNA 2002).