Have you ever tried to identify a grass? Most of us who like to look at plants and learn their names will probably admit that we often give up on grasses pretty quickly, or just ignore them entirely. They aren’t the easiest plants to identify to species, and there are so many of them. Without close inspection, they can all look pretty similar. Their flowers aren’t particularly showy, and their…

Dulichium arundinaceum (Three-way Sedge)

This species is a classic occupant of minerotrophic and relatively high pH wetlands in my region and is my favorite sedge! It generally grows in shallow standing water or on the edges of deeper channels — it definitely likes its feet wet!

The first two pictures are of an individual in fruit, while the last is in flower, believe it or not! (All of the little white floofs are the stamens—pollen bearing parts—of the sedge flowers.)

Non-reproductive individuals are still easily identifiable (rare for sedges!) by the pronounced 3-ranked arrangement of leaves all the way up the main axis, as seen in the second image.