Carex riparia   Greater Pond-sedge C DD N

Carex riparia

Towards the end of a successful day botanising in the rich dunes of Southport, we walked past a huge stand of sedgy looking plants. Realising that I hadn't photographed this one we stopped and it keyed out to our first intuition : Greater Pond-sedge. This is quite a large sedge and can be over 1 m tall.

It is common in England, very common in the East but much rarer in Scotland. It seems to occur in patches with many plants if the habitat is right. This was the only patch we saw on our walk but there were hundreds of plants.

Sefton Coast dune system near Southport 23rd July 2005

Added on October 9th 2005, updated 25th November 2008, updated 11th March 2010

Valid XHTML 1.0 Strict