Photo by Peter M. Dzuik
Few-seeded sedge (Carex oligosperma) is found in bogs, sedge meadows, and peaty wetlands. It grows only in acidic soils. It is common in bogs along with woolly-fruit sedge, where the long rhizomes of the two sedges weave together and help create floating vegetative mats. The leaves are wiry, stiff, and no more than ⅛″ wide, giving this plant one of its other common names, wiregrass.
This species is identified by narrow leaves with margins rolled inward; reddish-purple sheaths of basal leaves; lack of cross lines between the veins of the leaf sheath; unisexual flower spikes; and short, plump pistillate spikes with just 3 to 15 spikelets.