I always felt like this was a weed, because it’s kind of spiky, but really it’s a sedge, and as some people know, a weed is just a plant growing where you don’t want it to.
Alternate Names: Lurid Sedge (what's up with that? Lurid??) Size: 1-3' tall Family: Cyperaceae (Sedge Family) Habitat: Full sun to light shade, wet to moist conditions, and various kinds of soil (loamy, sandy, & gravelly). It tolerates temporary flooding. Found in meadows, swamps, edges of marshes, gravelly seeps, borders of ponds and streams, and ditches. This sedge is found in many kinds of wetlands of varying quality. From Illinoiswildflower.info Identification: "Perennial sedge forms a tuft of basal leaves and one or more culms up to 2 1/2' long. Each culm terminates in an inflorescence up to 6" long that consists of 1-4 pistillate spikelets and a single staminate spikelet. Underneath each of these spikelets, there is a leafy bract of variable size." From Illinoiswildflower.info
