Web Developer, Photographer, Musician
I learned what Dark Green Bulrush sedges looked like the other day. This seems like that to me only the tops are WAY bigger with far more going on. I love the close up shot of the inflorescence. Note the band of dark red on the leaf sheath. These were in the jack pot of an unkempt lot next to the bank in Ellsworth, Maine on July 3.
High resolution photographs available upon request.
This morning, Abigail, Zachariah, and I accompanied my mom and stepdad for the half hour haul into Ellsworth. A trip into town from their house (Thrush Cottage) in Waltham is a big deal around here. The town of Waltham is so small my mom says she hasn’t even been able to find it in all the years they’ve lived here. You better have a full tank of gas before you ever leave town, cuz there ain’t no getting any between getting home and getting back to town.
But I digress.
We dropped off my mom and Abigail at the hairdressers for my mother’s ungodly 8:30 am appointment. (Mom! What were you thinking? 🙂 ) Zachariah and I accompanied Carl to Home Depot and the bank. As Zach and I waited in the car at the bank, I spotted a big patch of what looked like a lot of grasses I’d never seen before next to the parking lot. I told Zach, “Tell Carl to come pick me up when he’s done.” Zach rolls his eyes.
As I suspected, there was A LOT OF GREAT STUFF in there. I was a little scared of snakes since the horsetails made it difficult to see the ground, and I was sort of wading waist deep in tall grasses, but I persisted and got handfuls of grasses and sedges to bring back with me.
As I got into the car, Zach’s only comment was, “Mom! All of that stuff looks the same.”
Zachariah, this photo is for you.
This sedge is SO CUTE! Who knows if it’s really Carex scoparia? Anybody? Also very photogenic.
I especially love its “fly away” hair.
I feel very exotic giving any of these sedges names. I hope someone will offer correction if necessary. I blame Lauren Brown for any mistakes since she makes it seem so easy in her book Grasses: An Identification Guide. I hope I get to meet her someday since she lives in just the next town over.
I love this sedge. Or maybe I just love how it submitted to my camera. I found it in Maine on the path on the way to the pond from my mother’s house.
Once I photographed this sedge and found a name for it, I started to see it everywhere – mainly along the roadsides. Today I saw it in the gardens at the Guilford Free Library, and I’m sure someone will come along and pull it up for a weed.
I guess you’re supposed to be able to eat the tubers, but I’ve never tried it.
Sounds to me like a lazy sedge.
I came out of a building the other day with Rachel in tow and stumbled over what most other people would be trying to throw weed killer on. It was growing up out of a crack in the sidewalk. My exclamation of “Oh! Look how cute it is!” was met with “Mom, you are SO weird!”
The arrangement I made of it in a Waterford vase makes it look very different than it does coming out of a crack in the sidewalk, but that’s okay. I love it anyway.
