2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
Finger sedge (lat. Carex digitata) - a bright green herbaceous perennial plant of the genus Sedge (lat. Carex) from the family of the same name Sedge (lat. Cyperaceae). Finger sedge is quite a cute plant that can be used to decorate shady areas of the garden, as well as as a ground cover plant. The low-growing plant has a shock of palm-like leaves, narrow and soft, and also very cute spike-shaped loose inflorescences.
What's in your name
The Latin word "Carex", with which the names of all plant species of the genus begin, means, translated into Russian, "cut or misfire, if we recall the Old Church Slavonic word with the same meaning." The roots of the Russian name "Sedge" also grow from here. And although the leaves of finger sedge are soft, you can still injure your hand on the edge of the leaf.
The specific epithet "digitata" means "finger" and is associated with the arrangement of the plant's leaf blades. Finger leaves are complex leaves that usually have a common petiole with several leaves located on it. But, unlike such complex leaves, the finger leaves have no main petiole. Leaf plates diverge directly from the root, disintegrating along a radius that seemed to botanists to be similar to the fingers of a human hand. From such an association a similar epithet was born.
Although, looking at the flower spikelets at the time of budding or at the time of the birth of seedlings, it can be assumed that they also gave rise to a specific epithet.
Description
The guarantor of perenniality of finger sedge is a creeping rhizome, which extends deep into the soil with adventitious roots, and on the surface of the earth is a scattering of narrow palmate leaves, bending under the action of their length. The plant is rather short, its height varies from 10 to 30 centimeters, which makes it possible to use finger sedge as a ground cover plant.
Numerous flat leaves are soft to the touch, which does not prevent their edges from being sharp and dangerous. The surface of the leaf plate is protected by bristle-like scattered hairs. Due to the fact that the leaves bend to the surface of the earth, sometimes almost touching it with their sharp tips, erect peduncles with spike-shaped inflorescences, like brave soldiers, rise above the decorative shock of narrow green leaves. The section of the stem is flattened triangular. Covering leaves at the base of the stems are brownish-red sheaths.
The spike-shaped inflorescence is 3 to 10 centimeters long and contains male and female flowers. The female flowers are pale brown to reddish brown and have a green body. Spikelet inflorescences are a complex structure for people far from botanical wisdom, which includes covering scales, protective pubescent sacs with a wedge-shaped base and a solid nose at the top, covering leaves, and, of course, stamens and pistils with stigmas. Outwardly, the inflorescence looks like a loose, disheveled spikelet.
The crown of the growing cycle is the fruit, lying on a receptacle, up to two millimeters long. Tireless ants are engaged in the spread of seeds across the territory.
Usage
In the wild, Finger sedge most often chooses deciduous or mixed forests for itself, with a calcareous soil that is not distinguished by high fertility, which explains the small size and modest appearance of the plant.
Such unpretentiousness of finger sedge is used in horticulture when a ground cover plant is required for shaded areas of the garden, where other plants that need good lighting do not want to grow.
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