The Sedge Stage

ID NP-2026-0418-01 Species Puccinia urticata Host Carex sp. Stage Uredinial (uredinia present) Phenology Mid-April · Active spread phase Notes Dense orange uredinia across leaf surface; heavy infection causing leaf curling. Found in a field and in my garden with nearby nettles. Last week I wrote about finding Puccinia urticata on nettles, the swollen stems, the orange aecia and the invisible link to a completely different plant that I hoped to document later in the season. Well, it turns out that I didn't have to wait long for that to happen. Walking the meadow edge yesterday, I found sedges (Carex species) growing in the damp margin where the ground stays wet the longest. Several of them were covered in orange. Not the cup-shaped aecia of the nettle stage, but a bit different. Smaller, more scattered and more densely covering the leaf surface. One leaf was curling dramatically inward on itself, its inner surface completely coated in bright yellow-orange spore masses. The fungus had…