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Carex harfordii 'Tunitas Creek' (Harford's Sedge) - A clumping fine-textured evergreen sedge growing 18 inches tall by as wide with very narrow grass-like green leaves that arch outward. Green flowers in tight globose clusters with long slender bracts top slender stems near the top of the foliage in summer.
Plant in full sun in a well-draining soils and irrigate regularly to occasionally. Should prove hardy to at least 15° F. A nice green native sedge with weeping foliage so nice spilling over walls or rocks, or in a large container.
This plant was collected on private property near Tunitas Creek in San Mateo County and given to us as seed by the Grassman, John Greenlee. It was unidentified when we received it but we tentatively identified it as Carex harfordii based on its flowers and collection location, though the similar Carex subbracteata has also been identified growing near this same location.
Carex harfordii is native to the lowland coastal habitats in California and southern Oregon. The name for the genus is a Latin word describing the sedges and the specific epithet honors William George Willoughby Harford (1825-1911), a marine taxonomist and botanist whose specimens augmented the early herbarium collections of the California Academy of Natural Sciences where he was director of the Academy's museum from 1876-1886. He lived with and collected plants with Dr. Albert Kellogg, who was considered to be California's first resident botanist. Harford and Kellogg were the first to collect on Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa islands (collecting the Bush Poppy, Dendromecon harfordii, that was later named for Harford) and in 1868-69 they collected the holotype of this plant that Sedge specialist Kenneth Mackenzie later named for Harford.
We christened this plant 'Tunitas Creek" to honor its collection location. Tunitas Creek is a ~ 7 mile long stream that flows from its source on Kings Mountain at 1,860 feet in the Santa Cruz Mountains to the Pacific Ocean at Tunitas Beach in San Mateo County, California. Tunitas is a Spanish word meaning "little prickly pears".
The information displayed on this page about Carex harfordii 'Tunitas Creek' is based on our research conducted about this plant from books in our nursery library as well as from information that is provided by reliable online resources. We also have included our own observations made about it as it grew in the nursery gardens and other gardens visited, as well how the crops of this plant performed in the containers when we had them in our nursery field. We also include comments received from others and welcome hearing from anyone who has information about this plant, particularly if it includes cultural information aiding others to better grow it.
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