Florapass
English
Grey Club-Rush

Grey Club-Rush

Schoenoplectus tabernaemontani

Identify the Grey Club-Rush from a photo and log your finds with Florapass.

Coming soon to the App Store and Google Play.

How common: Common

Grey Club-Rush is a tall waterside plant with smooth, round, often bluish‑green stems. It forms clumps in shallow water of lakes and rivers and also tolerates slightly salty estuaries. Near the tip it carries a loose, drooping cluster of many small brown flower heads.

Did you know?

  • The stems are hollow and spongy inside and can look bluish grey.
  • It can grow from the water’s edge down to about 2 m deep.

About the species

Identification

Robust waterside plant from creeping underground stems, 70–150 cm tall. Stems round, smooth-looking, green to bluish-green, hollow and spongy; mostly leafless. Leaf bases form tight wraps at the bottom; sometimes a very short narrow blade. Near the tip is a loose, drooping, many-branched cluster with lots of small brown heads, often in groups. Fruits are small hard, slightly flattened seeds about 2–2.5 mm. Told from reeds and cattails by its leafless round stems and many small heads, not long plumes or sausage-like spikes. Flowers in Finland in June–July.

Plant group

Grasses, sedges and rushes

Habitat

water

Flowering

Jun–Jul

About the habitat

Shallow fresh water and slightly brackish shores, along lake and river edges, often on soft silty or clay bottoms. It roots in the bottom while the stems stand up through the water.

Sources

Photo: Tommy Forrest, CC0 1.0 https://www.gbif.org/occurrence/6130242111

Text: Pinkka: Kasvitieteen retkeily Ahvenanmaalle - Kastelholman linna, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.40250

Text: Pinkka: BIO-306 Saariston ekologia - Vesi- ja rantakasvit, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.40250

Text: Wikipedia (Finnish), CC BY-SA 4.0 https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinikaisla

See also