On the identification of sedges.

What the fuck is a sedge? A sedge is a grasslike plant with triangular stems and inconspicuous flowers, growing typically in wet ground. They grow all over throughout temperate and cold regions, where there be swampy bits.

I live, more or less, in a swampy with all swampy bits. There are several different kinds of sedges here.

1. The kind with the drooping seedheads
2. The kind with the bristly seedheads of many
3. The kind with the bristly seedheads of few
4. The kind with the clumpy seedheads
5. The small kind with the kitty paw seedheads

Here is a picture of the readily-available sedges that I don't have to walk very far to get. Kind 3 not-shown because it's too far to walk in the rain.



We need to know about sedges because this is NOT AN OK WAY OF TALKING ABOUT THE SEDGES. Plus they're kind of pretty. They should have names.

Botany students and ecology people and shit learn the following rhyme.

Sedges have edges, rushes are round, grasses have nodes from the tips to the ground.

But then once you have a sedge (usually it grows in the wet and has a triangular stem, that's the "edges" part)... then what next?

( Here follows a truckload of nerdy plant information I need to learn in order to identify fucking sedges. Come along, if you like. )