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Scientific Name
Carex, Schoenoplectus, Scirpus, and other genera
Family
Cyperaceae (sedges)
Description
Sedges, like grasses, are nonwoody annuals or perennials with linear, parallel-veined leaves whose lower portions sheath the stems. The flowers are spikelets or spikes; each tiny flower lacks petals and sepals but is enclosed in scales (tiny bracts). The spikes can be in arranged into panicles headlike clusters, or umbels.
Key features of sedges:
- The stems are very often triangular in cross-section and are solid, not hollow.
- The leaves are usually 3-ranked (they come out on 3 sides of the stem) (while true grasses are 2-ranked, opposite).
- The leaf sheaths are usually tightly closed or fused (in grasses, the sheaths are split open lengthwise).
- The flower clusters often have 1 or more leaflike bracts spreading out from the base.
- The fruits are 2- or 3-sided achenes (dry, single-seeded fruits that don’t split open).
Missouri has 16 genera of sedges (family Cyperaceae), comprising more than 200 species. Globally, there are about 4,000 species in the sedge family.
- Identifying the various sedge species is tricky even for botanists, who often need to see the rootstocks and use microscopes to examine tiny details of the nutlike fruits.
- It’s not hard, however, to learn some basics about the sedge family. Start by memorizing the phrase “sedges have edges,” which will help you remember their distinctive triangular stems. In many cases, you can tell a plant is a sedge just by feeling the stem!
Similar species: Plants in the rush family typically have basal leaves; round, solid stems; and flowers with 3 sepals and 3 sepal-like petals. Their fruits are many-seeded capsules that split open lengthwise.
Size
Height: some species to 4 feet, but most are much shorter.
Where To Find
Statewide. Some species are fairly widespread and common. Others are rare or limited to certain parts of the state.
Habitat and Conservation
Sedges are usually found in wet habitats: margins of ponds, lakes, creeks, rivers, sloughs, wetlands, bottomland forests, and so on. Some species grow right in the water, some along the edges.
Some species live in prairies, glades, and upland woodlands.
Some are weedy and grow in yards, gardens, and vacant lots, and along roadsides and railroads.
Status
Missouri has about 219 species of sedges; 10 of these are introduced.
More than 60 Missouri sedges are species of conservation concern; several of them are listed as critically imperiled.
Human Connections
Some sedges are used as ornamentals, especially in water gardens.
Ancient Egyptians used one species to make papyrus paper, and its buoyant stems to make boats. The infant Moses’s basket may have been woven from sedges.
Parts of some species of sedges are edible. Chinese water chestnuts are the corms (rootstocks) of one type of sedge.
Considering the family’s very large size, sedges have a low direct economic importance for humans.
Ecosystem Connections
Sedges are very important for stabilizing soils in wetlands and stream and lake margins. During floods, their dense root systems help prevent soil from washing away. The entire plants help absorb the sheer force of fast-flowing water.
Their fruits provide food for many kinds of waterfowl and other animals.
Dense stands of sedges provide important habitat for the huge variety of animals that live along or visit water edges.
One species, sawgrass (Cladium jamaicense), is the dominant plant in the Florida Everglades.
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Caption
You've almost certainly seen eastern woodland sedge (Carex blanda). You probably thought it was a grass, but it is in the sedge family. It is probably the most common sedge in Missouri. It grows in swamps, forests, edges of rivers and streams, as well as lawns, roadsides, and other disturbed, shaded areas.
Credit
Charles T. Bryson, USDA Agricultural Research Service, Bugwood.org
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Oak sedge, or white-tinged sedge (Carex albicans), blooms in early spring in upland forests. The terminal spike bears male flowers, and the lateral spikes are female. This native sedge tolerates drier conditions than other sedges and can be grown in shade gardens. Look for it at native plant nurseries.
Credit
Charles T. Bryson, USDA Agricultural Research Service, Bugwood.org
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Gray’s sedge, or globe sedge (Carex grayi), is easy to identify because of the spiky, globelike configuration of the female spikelets. The male spikelet is above, with its tan, withered flowers. Fruiting parts of sedges are important for identifications. Gray’s sedge can be grown as a native, shade-loving ornamental.
Credit
MDC Staff
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Photo by MDC Staff, courtesy Missouri Department of Conservation
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James’s sedge (Carex jamesii) is scattered throughout Missouri. It grows in forests and on ledges and bases of bluffs. As with most other sedges, you need to see its unique flower or fruiting spikes in order to be certain of your identification. But you can tell that it’s a sedge by feeling its triangular stems.
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MDC Staff
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Photo by MDC Staff, courtesy Missouri Department of Conservation
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The spikes of Short’s sedge (Carex shortiana) are densely packed cylinders to 1½ inches long. In the terminal spike, the female flowers grouped above the male ones (which here look tan and withered). Below the terminal spike are 3-5 more spikes with only pistillate flowers. Here, the flowers are maturing into seedlike fruits.
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MDC Staff
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Photo by MDC Staff, courtesy Missouri Department of Conservation
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Bush’s sedge (Carex bushii) is common nearly statewide except for the northwestern corner and the Bootheel. In it, the terminal spike has female flowers at the tip and male flowers in the lower half; the few side spikes are short-stalked and bear only female flowers. In this photo, the male flowers have withered and the female flowers are maturing.
Credit
Charles T. Bryson, USDA Agricultural Research Service, Bugwood.org
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Fox sedge (Carex vulpinoidea) is common throughout Missouri and grows in a wide range of low, moist places. A perennial with stout rootstocks, it grows to about 2 feet tall. It is in a group of sedges that have numerous stalkless flowers crowded into spikes or narrow panicles.
Credit
MDC Staff
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Photo by MDC Staff, courtesy Missouri Department of Conservation
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The fruiting clusters of fox sedge (Carex vulpinoidea) are elongated and densely packed. The protruding, hairy-looking awns make them look like fox tails.
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Charles T. Bryson, USDA Agricultural Research Service, Bugwood.org
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Chairmaker’s rush (Schoenoplectus pungens) is scattered nearly statewide. It grows along the edges of streams, ponds, lakes, and in marshes and ditches. The seeds of this and other bulrushes are eaten by waterfowl, which disperse them with the mud on their feet and feathers and as undigested seeds in their droppings.
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Graves Lovell, Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Bugwood.org
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Chairmaker’s rush (Schoenoplectus pungens) is also called common threesquare for its strongly triangular stems. Triangular stems are a hallmark of the sedge family (Cyperaceae). Although not all sedges have triangular stems, this trait is one way to distinguish them from members of the grass family, which have round stems.
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Graves Lovell, Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Bugwood.org
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In chairmaker's rush (Schoenoplectus pungens), the flower clusters (spikes or spikelets) are stalkless, conical, about ½ inch long, and have many overlapping scales. They arise in groups of 1-4 on wiry, green, sharply triangular stems.
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Graves Lovell, Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Bugwood.org
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Chairmaker’s rush (Schoenoplectus pungens) grows to about 3 feet tall from stout, long-creeping rhizomes. Like many other perennial plants that colonize shores and wetlands, it holds the soil while providing shelter and food for many kinds of animals.
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Graves Lovell, Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Bugwood.org
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In chairmaker's rush (Schoenoplectus pungens), each conical, scaled spikelet contains several florets, each with its own pistil that usually has 2 stigmas (the whitish tendrils in this photo). Botanists use microscopes and needles to tease apart sedge fruits or flowers in order to make exact identifications.
Credit
Rob Routledge, Sault College, Bugwood.org
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Pendulous bulrush or nodding bulrush, Scirpus pendulus, is named for its nodding clusters of spikes (flowering heads). Some alternate common names, rufous bulrush and red bulrush, refer to the reddish color of the mature spikes.
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Julianna Schroeder
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Pendulous bulrush, Scirpus pendulus, growing at Tucker Prairie. It grows in moist prairies, moist depressions and ledges of calcareous glades and bluffs; along streams, rivers, lakes, and ponds; and in ditches along roads.
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Julianna Schroeder
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Pendulous bulrush, Scirpus pendulus, has a wide distribution in North America. This is what its flowering clusters (spikes) look like in May.
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Julianna Schroeder
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Pendulous bulrush, Scirpus pendulus, is one of Missouri’s most common bulrush species. This is what its flowering clusters (spikes) look like in early July.
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Julianna Schroeder
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Softstem bulrush or great bulrush, Schoenoplectus tabernaemontani, has a large global distribution and is one of Missouri’s most common bulrushes.
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Rob Routledge, Sault College, Bugwood.org
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Softstem bulrush or great bulrush, Schoenoplectus tabernaemontani, is usually found growing as an emergent aquatic plant along streams, ponds, and lakes, and in wetlands, damp ditches, and other moist areas.
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Reuven Martin, Public Domain
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Woolgrass bulrush, Scirpus cyperinus, at the University of Mississippi Field Station. This species has fuzzy flowering clusters. It usually grows as an emergent aquatic in wetlands, bottomland prairies, and other open areas with wet or damp soils. It’s most common in eastern and northern Missouri.
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Fredlyfish4 used under CC BY-SA 4.0
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Dark green bulrush, Scirpus atrovirens, has a wide distribution in the eastern United States, and it’s one of Missouri’s most common bulrushes.
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© Opassi used under CC BY-NC 4.0
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Of Missouri’s nearly 30 types of bulrushes, dark green bulrush (Scirpus atrovirens) is one of the few that are suggested as native landscaping plants. The dark brown fruiting clusters are interesting in the fall.
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Jennifer Anderson, USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database, Public Domain
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Dark green bulrush, Scirpus atrovirens, is closely related to Georgia bulrush, and because they were once thought to be a single species, they both still go by the name of “common bulrush.” Dark green bulrush has a more northern distribution than Georgia bulrush.
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Jennifer Anderson, USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database, Public Domain
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Georgia bulrush, Scirpus georgianus, is closely related to dark green bulrush, and because they were once thought to be a single species, they both still go by the name of “common bulrush.” Georgia bulrush has a more southerly distribution than dark green bulrush.
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Becky Dill, Public Domain
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Sedges are a group of wetland plants. The marsh flatsedge (Cyperus pseudovegetus) is only found in the southern half of the state and has unique seeds or achenes.
Credit
Frank Nelson
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Photo by Frank Nelson, courtesy Missouri Department of Conservation
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Hedgehog clubrush, Cyperus echinatus, is relatively common, especially in southern Missouri. It grows in dry, open areas, including upland prairies, sand prairies, glades, openings of dry upland forests, and dry pastures, and roadsides. Photo taken at Hi Lonesome Prairie, July 5, 2021.
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Julianna Schroeder
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Hedgehog clubrush (Cyperus echinatus). Like most other members of the sedge family, its stalks are triangular in cross-section. Like many other umbrella sedges (genus Cyperus), the flower clusters arise in a whorl at the tip of the stalk, somewhat resembling an umbrella.
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Julianna Schroeder
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False nutgrass, or straw-colored flatsedge (Cyperus strigosus), is common statewide in a wide variety of open, grassy habitats, from mudflats and gravel bars to pastures, roadside ditches, and other moist, sunny areas.
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Julianna Schroeder
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False nutgrass, or straw-colored flatsedge (Cyperus strigosus), is a common Missouri representative of the sedge family. Hallmarks of this family include stems that are triangular in cross-section. This species produces its floral spikes in compound umbels.
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Julianna Schroeder
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False nutgrass, or straw-colored flatsedge (Cyperus strigosus), is common and easy to recognize at a distance. The flowering heads, which look something like bottlebrushes, are quite distinctive.
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Julianna Schroeder
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In false nutgrass, or straw-colored flatsedge (Cyperus strigosus), the spikelets are crowded together into a roughly cylindrical, bottlebrush-shaped spike. Most of the spiklets are at right angles to the spike’s central axis.
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Julianna Schroeder
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False nutgrass, or straw-colored flatsedge (Cyperus strigosus), has 20–75 narrow, pointed, strongly flattened spikelets arranged in a cylindrical pattern in each floral cluster (spike). The spikes are grouped at the top of the plant stem.
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Julianna Schroeder
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At the top of the main stem of false nutgrass, there are several spikes that look like inch-long green bottlebrushes. Some of the spikes are sessile (stalkless) at the top of the stem, while others spread away on stalks in an umbrella-like arrangement.
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Julianna Schroeder
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False nutgrass, or straw-colored flatsedge (Cyperus strigosus), is a native Missouri sedge. It is widespread and somewhat weedy, since it can live in a variety of moist to wet substrates in full sun. It does most of its growth in the hottest months of the year.
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Julianna Schroeder
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About Wildflowers, Grasses and Other Nonwoody Plants in Missouri
A very simple way of thinking about the green world is to divide the vascular plants into two groups: woody and nonwoody (or herbaceous). But this is an artificial division; many plant families include some species that are woody and some that are not. The diversity of nonwoody vascular plants is staggering! Think of all the ferns, grasses, sedges, lilies, peas, sunflowers, nightshades, milkweeds, mustards, mints, and mallows — weeds and wildflowers — and many more!