FLORA OF ICELAND elements: Carex limosa, Common Bog-sedge, Flóastör
and Carex paupercula, Tall Bog-sedge, Keldustör

Carex limosa; The Common Bog-sedge is a medium-sized sedge, maximally 35cm tall.
  - The leaves are narrow (± 2mm wide) and long (up to ≤35cm long; shorter than the culm). The leaf under the lowest spike i.e. bract is rather short, much shorter than the inflorescence (see note on Carex paupercula). The culm is rough at the top.
  - The inflorescence is made up of one male spike and two to three female spikes. The bracts on the spikes (scales) are mainly brown-colored. The male spike is situated at the top of a vertically straight culm. The female spikes are on downwards nodding pedicels. The flowers have three stigmas. The utricles are pear-shaped, rough and hardly beaked.
  - The species is rather common in bogs at lower altitudes around Iceland.
  - The Common Bog-sedge (C. limosa) is a member of the sedge family (Cyperaceae). The Icelandic name of this species is Flóastör.

Carex paupercula; The Tall Bog-sedge (Icelandic name: Keldustör) is a very similar species. It is rarer than the common bog-sedge but grows in similar habitats. It differs in the bract under the lowest female spike: it is longer than the inflorescence/culm where it is shorter than this lowest spike. Also, the female spikes are shorter (less flowered) and have short more globose utricles. As a rule of thumb one could say that the lowest female spike is less than three times longer than wide. In C. limosa it is over three times long/wide.
  All photos presented are C. limosa.

There are a few sedges on Iceland with one top male spike and two to three drooping female spikes. These are C. capillaris, C. rariflora and the two species describes above C. limosa and C. paupercula. The differences of the latter two have been given above. Here is how to recognize the others: C. rariflora has very dark (black) scales with a light midrib where the other species have bown scales, usually lacking a light midrib. It has less female flowers in the spikes than C. limosa, like C. paupercula but does not have the long culm-exceeding lowest bract.
C. rariflora: unlike the others has utricles with long beakes. Beware though that C. limosa has rather long tapering utricles.