Carex vesicaria
Tracheophyta
›Magnoliopsida›Cyperaceae›Carex›Carex vesicaria
Ecology
A perennial herb of wet habitats, mainly mesotrophic and at least slightly basic, occurring where the water table lies close to or above the soil surface. It is found by lakes, rivers, streams, ponds and canals, in marshes and swamps, ditches, wet meadows and depressions in pasture, and in wet woodland. It also colonises wet hollows in disused sand-, gravel- and clay-pits. 0-455 m (Llyn Gorast, Cards.).
Status
Native
Trends
C. vesicaria has been lost from many sites in England and S.E. Ireland since the 1962 Atlas. Causes of this decline in Britain include drainage, falling water tables, ditch cleaning and eutrophication.
World Distribution
Circumpolar Boreo-temperate element.
© L. Rooney
Haysden, Kent
© L. Rooney
Haysden, Kent
© L. Rooney
Haysden, Kent
© L. Rooney
Broad Habitats
Fen, marsh and swamp (not wooded)
Light (Ellenberg): 8
Moisture (Ellenberg): 10
Reaction (Ellenberg): 5
Nitrogen (Ellenberg): 4
Salt Tolerance (Ellenberg): 0
January Mean Temperature (Celsius): 3.3
July Mean Temperature (Celsius): 14.6
Annual Precipitation (mm): 1072
Height (cm): 120
Perennation - primary
Perennial
Life Form - primary
Perennial hydrophyte (perennial water plant)
Life Form - secondary
Hemicryptophyte
Woodiness
Herbaceous
Clonality - primary
Rhizome shortly creeping
Count of 10km squares in Great Britain: 913
Count of 10km squares in Ireland: 230
Count of 10km squares in the Channel Isles: 1
Atlas Change Index: -0.52
Weighted Changed Factor: 19
Weighted Change Factor Confidence (90%)
54
JNCC Designations
NBNSYS0000002427