Carex Depauperata

Starved wood-sedge is one of Britain’s rarest native plants, forming graceful, loosely tufted clumps with broad arching leaves and unusually sparse flower stems bearing the largest fruits of any native sedge. It survives naturally at only a few woodland-bank sites, having declined as traditional coppicing and woodland management disappeared. At one point a single Somerset plant was thought to represent almost the entire population, while the great storm of 1987 unexpectedly opened the canopy at another site and encouraged its return. Conservation work and carefully managed reintroductions are now helping this remarkable sedge recover.