Longhair Sedge & Grape Vine - Shrub Carr

Longhair Sedge / C. comosa

Order: Cyperales Family: Cyperaceae Genus: Carex

-Flowering: July-August.
-Field Marks: This Carex is recognized by the male and female flowers in separate spikes, the perigynia less than 1/2 inch long and with a prominent beak with 2 teeth, and the lowermost perigynia in a spike pointing downward.
-Habitat: Swamps, around lakes.
- Habit: Perennial herb with slender rhizomes.
-Stems: Erect, smooth, up to 5 feet tall.
- Leaves: Long, narrow, rough along the edges, up to 1/3 inch broad.
-Flowers: Many in spikelets, each flower subtended by a scale; the male flowers in separate spikes from the female flowers, only 1 male spike per stem, long and slender; the female spikes usually 2-6 per stem, up to 3 inches long, up to 1/3 inch across, on slender stalks that droop at maturity.



order Vitales
Family Vitaceae – Grape family
Genus Vitis L. – grape
Species Vitis vinifera L. – wine grape

Grape-vine is a perennial plant.
It is a deciduous woody vine (30-40 m tall) with long (3-5 cm), thin annual shoots and a powerful root system that penetrates the soil to a depth of 7 m or more. Grape-vine's trunk is coarse and barbate.
Its crust peels off in strips. Grape-vine leaves are alternate, from full, rounded or angular to very much divided into lobes. They may be glabrous or pubescent.
Grape-vine plants cling to their supports with tendrils. Grape-vine flowers are very fragrant and polygamous: they are functionally female (with short, distant and bent sterile stamens) or bisexual.

Special Adaptations: Vitis vinifera (grapevine) is native to Europe as well as East and Central Asia and is suggested to have first appeared ~65 million years ago.
Grapevine has been planted all over the world for the wine, raisin, and table berries production and is the most economically important fruit crop in the world. The earliest evidence of wine production was found in Iran at the Hajji Firuz Tepe site about 7,400-7,000 years ago. Seeds of domesticated grapes dated from ~8,000 years ago were found in Georgia and in Turkey. Remains of wild grape seeds at various archeological sites suggest that the grape berries were collected and used since Neolithic period. Grapevines were introduced in New World in 16th century and to South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand in the 19th century.