"Sedges have edges...

...rushes are round; grasses are hollow right up from the ground." Uh, maybe.

I discovered sedges and rushes this year and earnestly tried to identify what I've seen growing but even when they bloom....I still don't know. This might be a Bottle-brush sedge (Carex hystericina) but I really don't know.

This could be a Green bulrush (Scirpus atrovirens) but again, I'm just guessing.

I have no idea what this is, but the lime green is extra pretty against that rock.

I do know what this is. It's Horsetail (Scouring-rush or Equisetum hyemale). This stuff is growing everywhere and it's a good thing I like it because it's been around since dinosaurs and where it grows, it will stay...I'm thinking, forever.

There are times when I have a hard time identifying plants from other people's photographs so this year, I just went ahead and bought some native plants I liked and then used them for identification, hoping I'd find some just like them growing on my land in Kansas.

I know this is Bur sedge (Carex grayi)...

...because the tag says so.

Sames goes with this Sensitive fern...

I haven't found any Bur sedges yet but I did see a lot of Sensitive ferns growing in a drainage ditch...looking beautiful...and protected from me because they were growing in an area where that snapper has been seen.

But this plant has had me stumped for over a year. I've never seen it at a garden center and I have not seen it on any wildflower ID site. It grows in an area where a garden used to be...and along the creek bank...and sometimes in the creek. It has a purposeful presence and looks very handsome wherever it grows. Insects don't seem to mess with it. I was hoping it might be related to a toad lily because the foliage just looked like something spectacular was going to happen when it flowered...if I could ever catch it in flower.

Which I did this year...and it was pitiful.

What was name of this plant that eluded identification for such a long time? Deer-Tongue grass (Panicum clandestinum). A grass. Yes, a grass!!! Would you ever think a grass would have leaves like that? This identification thing is just impossible. I don't trust my identification skills for rushes, sedges and some grasses but for one grass, I now consider myself an expert.

And if a bobwhite quail ever waddles by, they consider the seeds of Deer-Tongue grass a very good snack. That's what I know for now and it doesn't seem like all that much.