Faith In A Sedge Seed

“Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has

been, I have great faith in a seed.”

                                                                                      Henry Thoreau

What do you see above? Some people would look at this photo – and see a flower.

Stewards see sedge seeds – aching to be picked, transported, and sown.

Sedges demand a sensibility so refined that most people miss them entirely. A person can walk through a woods and see flowers, hear birds sing, hug a tree, find a frog or caterpillar – without noticing perhaps the biodiversity highlight. A fine woods has more species of sedges than any other genus of plant – and those sedges promote the diversity overall. As grass is to a prairie, sedges are to woods. And their beauty sings!

The seed ripening right now is Carex davisii.  Do you demand a common name? Sedge “common names” are largely jokes. No one knows them. Books make them up to fill a requirement. 

See Endnote 1. 

Some Somme stewards started calling themselves sedgeheads. Habitat 2030 folks did too, and this tee shirt is one of the results. The forehead or brain as depicted in the sedge-head skull is a sedge seed (or "achene" to a properly nerdy sedgehead). Will such a heavy-metalish tee work to popularized these outcast graminoides? Hope so.

This time of year, little bands of hunter-gatherers prowl through woods, prairies, and marshes searching merrily for handfuls of bionically pre-packaged embryos, to start new little worlds of restoration. If you live nearby and would like to join in, see Endnote 2. 

Every one of the Carex davisii seeds above has been held in someone's hand - and will be again - when they're broadcast back into some needy ecosystem. We Somme stewards have more than 200 acres of formerly degraded oak woods that cry out for seeds from hundreds of species. In our marshes and prairies, other sedges ripen and call out to us. Bit by bit, we restore.

Of course, other seeds ripen and call out too. In the Seneca snakeroot inflorescences below, if you look carefully at the bottom, dark seeds are starting to fall out. We will "massage off" those ripe black seeds - leave the rest to ripen - and disperse the ripe seeds to other promising Seneca snakeroot habitat opportunities. 

Blessed be those who gather seeds for ecosystem restoration. And it's free. Believe it or not. Education and conversation included. Good life for the ecosystem contributes to good life for some of us, too.  

Endnotes

Endnote 1

Swink and Wilhelm call this sedge "awned graceful sedge”? That’s a common name? Most Internet sites call it Davis' sedge. In real life, I've never heard anyone call it anything other than Carex davisii. It was named in honor of Emerson Davis "a Massachusetts educator and enthusiastic student of the genus Carex." Sedgeheads name species after each other, perhaps because few care, and lonely botanists need a boost. But we care. 

Is our handsome Carex davisii a rare plant? The entire Wikipedia entry for this species (when this post was first published) reads: "Carex davisii, known as Davis' sedge, is a species of Carex native to North America. It is listed as an endangered species within Connecticut and Massachusetts, endangered and extirpated in Maryland, threatened in Minnesota and New York, and as a special concern species in Tennessee."

In the Chicago region, Swink and Wilhelm gave Carex davisii a "conservatism rating" of 7 - meaning that it's largely restricted to high quality remnant or restored ecosystems. Wilhelm and Rericha later slashed that rating to a 4, which seems harsh! 

For more excitement about sedges see a thrilling previous post on this blog.

Cassi Saari, after reading the first draft of this post, generously rose to the occasion and wrote a better Carex davisii Wikipedia page at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carex_davisii

Endnote 2
Because it's hard to predict summer weather and seed ripenesses –  the times and meeting places for our summer seed collection forays are announced a few days before on the Somme Community Facebook page. At the last minute, we may meet earlier in the day than planned (if it will be very hot) or later (to avoid lightning and hail, if that's predicted). The weather refuses to adjust to us, so we try to adjust to it.  Check for last minute changes before heading out (no pun intended).

Acknowledgements

Seneca snakeroot photo by Eriko Kojima.

Fashion statement by Shop Habitat 2030.

Thanks for proofing to Kathy Garness. 

Wikipedia improvement by Cassi Saari.