Native. Perennial. Propagates by seeds and by rootstocks.

Time of bloom: June to July.

Seed-time: July to August.

Range: Nova Scotia to the Saskatchewan, southward to Georgia and Missouri.

Habitat: Wet meadows, marshes, and borders of streams.

One of the most widely distributed of its tribe and a bad weed in low grasslands, for it is worthless as fodder, either green or dry. Culms smooth, obtusely triangular, leafy, two to four feet tall. Leaves pale green, a quarter-inch to a half-inch wide, rough-edged, two or three of the upper ones whorled and extending above the flower cluster. Umbels compound, the spikelets densely crowded in capitate clusters of ten to thirty at the ends of the branched rays; scales greenish brown, oblong-ovate, bristle-pointed; stamens three; style three-parted; perianth composed of six bristles, downwardly barbed for most of their length but smooth near the base, equal to or exceeding the achene in length, the latter being oblong, pointed, three-sided, dull brownish yellow. (Fig. 38.)

Fig. 38. -Meadow Rush (Scirpus atrovirens). X 1/6.

Means Of Control

Drainage of the land, followed by a cultivated crop given very thorough tillage throughout the growing season, in order to prevent seed development and to destroy the perennial roots.