Schoenus nigricans
Encyclopedia
Schoenus nigricans is a species of sedge
known by the common name black bogrush. It is native to Eurasia, parts of Africa, Australia, and southern North America, including Mexico and the southernmost United States. It grows in many types of wetland
s and other moist and alkaline
habitat, including marsh
es, springs, seeps, peat bogs
, heath
, and alkali flats
. This perennial plant grows in low, tight clumps 20 to 70 centimeters tall, with threadlike leaves bearing wide, dark brown ligule
s. The inflorescence
is a small, flattened cluster of dark spikelets. The fruit is an achene
coated in a hard, white shell.
Cyperaceae
Cyperaceae are a family of monocotyledonous graminoid flowering plants known as sedges, which superficially resemble grasses or rushes. The family is large, with some 5,500 species described in about 109 genera. These species are widely distributed, with the centers of diversity for the group...
known by the common name black bogrush. It is native to Eurasia, parts of Africa, Australia, and southern North America, including Mexico and the southernmost United States. It grows in many types of wetland
Wetland
A wetland is an area of land whose soil is saturated with water either permanently or seasonally. Wetlands are categorised by their characteristic vegetation, which is adapted to these unique soil conditions....
s and other moist and alkaline
Alkali soils
Alkali, or alkaline, soils are clay soils with high pH , a poor soil structure and a low infiltration capacity. Often they have a hard calcareous layer at 0.5 to 1 metre depth. Alkali soils owe their unfavorable physico-chemical properties mainly to the dominating presence of sodium carbonate...
habitat, including marsh
Marsh
In geography, a marsh, or morass, is a type of wetland that is subject to frequent or continuous flood. Typically the water is shallow and features grasses, rushes, reeds, typhas, sedges, other herbaceous plants, and moss....
es, springs, seeps, peat bogs
Peat
Peat is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation matter or histosol. Peat forms in wetland bogs, moors, muskegs, pocosins, mires, and peat swamp forests. Peat is harvested as an important source of fuel in certain parts of the world...
, heath
Heath (habitat)
A heath or heathland is a dwarf-shrub habitat found on mainly low quality acidic soils, characterised by open, low growing woody vegetation, often dominated by plants of the Ericaceae. There are some clear differences between heath and moorland...
, and alkali flats
Dry lake
Dry lakes are ephemeral lakebeds, or a remnant of an endorheic lake. Such flats consist of fine-grained sediments infused with alkali salts. Dry lakes are also referred to as alkali flats, sabkhas, playas or mud flats...
. This perennial plant grows in low, tight clumps 20 to 70 centimeters tall, with threadlike leaves bearing wide, dark brown ligule
Ligule
A ligule — is a thin outgrowth at the junction of leaf and leafstalk of many grasses and sedges or a strap-shaped corolla, such as that of a ray floret in plants in the daisy family....
s. The inflorescence
Inflorescence
An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Strictly, it is the part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed and which is accordingly modified...
is a small, flattened cluster of dark spikelets. The fruit is an achene
Achene
An achene is a type of simple dry fruit produced by many species of flowering plants. Achenes are monocarpellate and indehiscent...
coated in a hard, white shell.