Yellow nut grass

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Yellow nut grass

Yellow nut grass spikelets

Yellow Nut Grass

Yellow nut grass leaves

Yellow nut grass inflorescence

Yellow nut grass

Yellow nut grass

Yellow nut grass inflorescence

Yellow nut grass spikelets

Yellow nut grass

Yellow nut grass inflorescence

Yellow nut grass spikelets

Morphology

Culm

Erect, stout, strongly 3-sided, solid, glabrous, waxy.

Leaves

Mostly basal, crowded, 3-ranked, 3 to 32 inches long, mostly 1/8 to 2/5 inch wide, pale green, glabrous.

Inflorescence

Compound umbel, 1-several nearly sessile spikes, 1-10 rays, terminal; subtended by 3-10 involucral bracts, leaf-like, 1 or more longer than inflorescence; spikes mostly cylindrical; spikelets 8-25 per spike, radiating or ascending.

Spikelet

Slender, .25 to 1.5 inches long, less than .1 inch wide, 8- to 20-flowered, flattened, golden brown; scales overlapping, several-nerved; tips blunt to pointed; stamens 3, styles 3-cleft.

Fruit

Achenes 3-angled, narrowly oblong-obovoid, brownish.

Ecology

Habitat

Found in cultivated fields, ditches, lawns, wet prairies, waste areas, and along stream and lake edges; moist soils.

Distribution

Occurs throughout Kansas but is encountered more frequently in the east 3/4.

Practical Information

Uses

Native Americans and pioneers used the tuber-like thickenings on the roots as a food source. Indians in the Southwest chewed the roots to treat coughs and applied the chewed roots to snakebites. Ducks, wild turkeys, deer, and muskrats eat the tuber-like nutlets.

Additional Notes