| Author | Willdenow | |
| Distribution | Lower Piedmont and upper Coastal Plain; disjunct to Polk County. Only four records are known: 1) Durham/Chatham County, 1959, edge of woods, Farrington Road 4 miles south of Chapel Hill, J. Pulver 62 (NCU); 2) Polk County, 2016, D. Campbell (specimen location not known to the website editors); 3) Montgomery County, Uwharrie NF, margins of streamhead, 2021, E. Ungberg s.n. (NCU). 4) Verified photographs (specimen will be submitted) of a small population in a "wet area within Mesic Pine Savanna" by the Little River in Cumberland County, in April 2025.
ME to NY south to NC, TN, and AL. | |
| Abundance | Extremely rare, with just three current locations in the state (Polk, Montgomery, and Cumberland counties). This is a State Threatened species. | |
| Habitat | "Edge of woods"; banks of a creek, "growing under mature Asimina triloba" [Common Pawpaw]; and moist ecotones of wet streamhead. Elsewhere in the range, it occurs in moist or seasonally wet clearings, woodland openings, seepage areas, and depressions. Flowering is usually triggered by disturbance. | |
| Phenology | Flowering and fruiting April-May. | |
| Identification | Velvet Sedge is colonial, with long rhizomes connecting plants. The basal leaf sheaths are red-purple. There normally are 1-2 female spikes with densely pubescent perigynia. | |
| Taxonomic Comments | None
The genus Carex is the largest in North America, and among the largest in the world. In temperate and boreal regions, Carex is often the dominant or co-dominant ground layer in many habitats. Seeds (achenes) are valuable food for birds and small mammals, while foliage is used by birds and mammals to make nests and as food by mammals. Species of Carex often look vastly different from one another -- spikes erect vs. drooping, tiny inflorescence vs. whopping, culms leafy vs. naked, perigynia beaked vs. beakless, stems densely bunched vs. single, etc. The genus has been divided into many sections (or groups), based on shared characters; some taxonomists have suggested that these be different genera, but that proves unworkable (so far). All Carex share the feature of a perigynium (an outer covering) which completely surrounds the achene (seed). This covering may fit tightly or loosely (like a small bladder), depending on which group or species. Details of perigynia shape, ornamentation, presence and size of beak, number of striations (or veins) are all important ID features. In recent years Rob Naczi and colleagues have stressed the importance of arrangement of perigynia -- whether spiral (3+ ranks) or distichous (2-ranked) -- and have named a number of new species as well as split off some older synonyms. Therefore, RAB's (1968) key, excellent for its time, can only be used in a general way today. Members of some sections of Carex are difficult to key out (notably Ovales, Laxiflorae, Griseae); this is in part due to variation among individuals of a species, or failings of the key. FNA has drawings of most species and some species may be found in two or more places within a key, to acount for variability. New species to NC, and new to science(!), continue to be found in NC. | |
| Other Common Name(s) | None | |
| State Rank | S1 | |
| Global Rank | G4 | |
| State Status | T | |
| US Status | | |
| USACE-agcp | | |
| USACE-emp | | |
