254. Long-stoloned Sedge

This is a sedge of dry forests here at Leaning Oaks, growing on shallow soils in the interface between our Garry Oak Meadow and the Douglas-fir forest.  It is an early spring bloooming sedge, this year blooming mid-March.  Anther producing flowers are at the top of the stem (yellowish anthers in the right hand photo here) and the female flowers are on the lower portion of the inflorescence (white stigmas showing on the photo).  Unlike most of the grasses on our property, which are introduced species, this is a native plant, found from southern BC to California. 
I've always thought of this as a tough, dapper little sedge, quite attractive with it dark flowering bits, however clearly not everyone thinks so, since it has the scientific name Carex inops ssp. inops.  Inops is Latin for helpless, destitute, indigent, poor, mean, wretched or contemptible.  Poor little sedge.