Carex hordeistichos

Arpa çayırsazı

Plant sometimes forming tussocks. Stems 5-40 cm, erect; basal sheaths cinnamon-brown, becoming blackish and fibrous. Leaves 3-5 mm broad, exceeding stems, glaucous-green, almost flat, rigid, scabrid above. Male spikes 1-3, terminal largest. Female spikes 2-4, distant from male, upper crowded and sessile, lowest remote and often pedunculate, 20-35 mm, oblong-ovoid, dense, sometimes branched at base; lowest bract sheathed, much longer than inflorescence. Female glumes pale greenish-brown, ovate, obtuse to acute, sometimes cuspidate, carinate. Utricles pale yellowish-brown becoming orange-brown, broadly lanceolate, 8-11.5 mm, in 4-5 distinct vertical rows, sparsely scabrid, many-veined; beak 3-3.5 mm, deeply membranous-bifid, slightly curving inwards, often split down back. Marshy ground by streams and lakes, ditches, sometimes in shallow water, 700-2300 m.

Very local in W. & C. Europe, northern Balkans, S. & southern C. Russia, Crimea, N. Iraq, W. Iran, N.W. Africa.