Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses

YELLOW NUT GRASS

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Cyperus esculentus L.

Konza Prairie, Riley County, Kansas

Perennial

Height: 6-30 inches

Family: Cyperaceae - Sedge Family

Flowering Period: July, August

Also Called:

Yellow nutsedge, chufa flatsedge.

Culms:

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.

Inflorescences:

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.

Spikelets:

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.

Fruits:

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

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.

Origin:

Introduced from Eurasia.

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.

Comments:

"Nut" refers to tuber-like thickenings or nutlets on the rhizomes. Yellow nut grass can be a problem weed. It grows aggressively via rhizomes, making it difficult to control.

Yellow nut grass spikelets