''Trichophorum cespitosum'', commonly known as deergrass or tufted bulrush, is a species of flowering plant in the

sedge family The Cyperaceae are a family of graminoid (grass-like), monocotyledonous flowering plants known as sedges. The family is large, with some 5,500 known species described in about 90 genera, the largest being the "true sedges" genus '' Carex'' wi ...

. It was originally described by the Swedish naturalist

Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, ...

in 1753 as ''Scirpus cespitosus'', but was transferred to the genus ''

Trichophorum ''Trichophorum'' is a genus of flowering plants in the sedge family, Cyperaceae. Plants in this genus are known as deergrasses in Britain but are sometimes known as bulrushes in North America. It contains the following species: * '' Trichophorum ...

'' by the Swedish botanist

Carl Johan Hartman Carl Johan Hartman (14 April 1790 in Gävle Gävle () is a Urban areas in Sweden, city in Sweden, the seat of Gävle Municipality and the capital of Gävleborg County. It had 77,586 inhabitants in 2020, which makes it the List of cities in Swede ...

in 1849, becoming ''Trichophorum cespitosum''.

Description

''Trichophorum cespitosum'' is a densely tufted perennial sedge often growing gregariously. The wiry stems are round in cross section and slightly ridged, and grow up to long. The leaves are reduced to several pointed sheaths at the base of the stem. The blade of the uppermost sheath is longer than that of the few-flowered spike-rush (''Eleocharis quinqueflora''), an otherwise similar plant, which has a small squarish upper leaf blade. The brownish inflorescence is a very small, narrow terminal head, with the basal pointed, ribbed green

glume In botany, a glume is a bract (leaf-like structure) below a spikelet in the inflorescence (flower cluster) of grasses (Poaceae) or the flowers of sedges (Cyperaceae). There are two other types of bracts in the spikelets of grasses: the lemma ...

the same length as the rest of the head. The fruit is an ovoid, three-sided nut in diameter.

Distribution and habitat

''Trichophorum cespitosum'' has a circum-boreal montane distribution. In the British Isles it occurs in Scotland, Northwest England, Wales, Southwest England and most of Ireland, thinning out in Southeastern England. It grows in wet acidic soils and peats, in bogs, moorland and wet heaths, persisting even in burnt areas and where grazing pressure by deer is high. It grows from sea level to at least in Britain, above

Caenlochan Caenlochan ( gd, Cadha an Lochain) is a glen in the Grampian Mountains of Scotland. Under EU Natura 2000 legislation it is a Special Area of Conservation for botanical reasons, containing plant communities found nowhere else in the UK. It is als ...

in Angus. It is a common species, growing abundantly in suitable conditions.

Ecology

Flatter

mire A mire, peatland, or quagmire is a wetland area dominated by living peat-forming plants. Mires arise because of incomplete decomposition of organic matter, usually litter from vegetation, due to water-logging and subsequent anoxia. All types o ...

s in the Alps and other montane regions are often dominated by deergrass and

cottongrass ''Eriophorum'' (cottongrass, cotton-grass or cottonsedge) is a genus of flowering plants in the family Cyperaceae, the sedge family. They are found throughout the arctic, subarctic, and temperate portions of the Northern Hemisphere in acid bog ...

(''Eriophorum angustifolium''), forming a community that turns brown in winter. It only grows at the margins of active bogs, being dominated by

sphagnum moss ''Sphagnum'' is a genus of approximately 380 accepted species of mosses, commonly known as sphagnum moss, peat moss, also bog moss and quacker moss (although that term is also sometimes used for peat). Accumulations of ''Sphagnum'' can store wa ...

(''Sphagnum'' spp.) in the raised central areas, but becomes dominant itself when drainage is undertaken. In wet heathland it may be associated with

heather Heather may refer to: Plants *The heather family, or Ericaceae, particularly: **Common heather or ling, '' Calluna'' **Various species of the genus '' Cassiope'' **Various species of the genus '' Erica'' Name * Heather (given name) * Heather ...

(''Calluna vulgaris'') and

purple moor grass ''Molinia caerulea'', known by the common name purple moor-grass, is a species of grass that is native to Europe, west Asia, and north Africa. It grows in locations from the lowlands up to in the Alps. Like most grasses, it grows best in acid ...

(''Molinia caerulea''), and provide grazing for deer, cattle and sheep.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q161310 cespitosum Plants described in 1849