- Everything about intermountain sedges is elongated. Its perygynia looks like a stretched-out blade of grass. Its bract is elongated and appears wrapped around the body at the base. The pistillate looks like an oval nut, but when in flower, it looks like an elongated spiky pine cone.
This perennial herb shoots up from the ground alone or in clumps and grows near water. It has creeping rhizomes and hairy fibrous roots. - There are 1,000 intermountain species in the world and about 550 in the United States, mostly found in or immediately near high mountain rivers, streams, and lakes. Sedges grow best in slightly acidic soils that range from sandy loam to clay and can grow in mineral soils. Sedge habitat includes willows, reed grasses, and cottonwoods.
- Grazing livestock animals tend to leave sedges alone. However, deer, elk, and redwing blackbirds like to eat them; and geese feed on them and breed within them. They tend to recover from fire and other disturbances well due to their extensive rhizome network. As for erosion control, it is somewhat difficult to artificially introduce sedges into riparian areas in need of repair; however, sedges will naturally colonize an area if soil conditions and nutrients are right.
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