Schoenoplectus americanus

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Schoenoplectus americanus
Schoenoplectus americanus FWS-1.jpg
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Monocots
Clade: Commelinids
Order: Poales
Family: Cyperaceae
Genus: Schoenoplectus
Species:
S. americanus
Binomial name
Schoenoplectus americanus
(Pers.) Volkart ex Schinz & R. Keller
Synonyms

Scirpus americanus
Scirpus olneyi

Schoenoplectus americanus (syn. Scirpus americanus) is an American species of flowering plant in the sedge family known by the common names chairmaker's bulrush and Olney's three-square bulrush.

Contents

Description

This perennial herb easily exceeds 2 metres (6+12 ft) in height. The stiff stems are sharply three-angled and usually very concave between the edges. Each plant has three or fewer leaves which are short and narrow. The inflorescence is a small head of several spikelets which may be brown to bright orange, red, purplish, or pale and translucent. They have hairy edges. The fruit is a brown achene. The plant reproduces sexually by seed and colonies spread via vegetative reproduction, sprouting from the rhizomes.

Distribution and habitat

It is native to the Americas, where it is known from Alaska to Nova Scotia and all the way into southern South America; it is most common along the East and Gulf Coasts of the United States and in parts of the western states. [1] It grows in many types of coastal and inland wetland habitat, as well as sagebrush, desert scrub, chaparral, and plains.

Ecology

This plant, particularly the rhizomes, are a food source of muskrat, nutria, and other animals; it is strongly favored by the snow goose in its wintering grounds. [1]

Uses

Native American groups used this plant for many purposes, including food, basketry, and hatmaking. [2] It is used for revegetation projects in salt marsh habitat in its native range. [1] It is a model organism in the study of salt marsh ecology and its response to climate change (currently global warming). [3]

Related Research Articles

<i>Typha</i> Genus of flowering plants in the family Typhaceae

Typha is a genus of about 30 species of monocotyledonous flowering plants in the family Typhaceae. These plants have a variety of common names, in British English as bulrush or reedmace, in American English as cattail, or punks, in Australia as cumbungi or bulrush, in Canada as bulrush or cattail, and in New Zealand as reed, cattail, bulrush or raupo. Other taxa of plants may be known as bulrush, including some sedges in Scirpus and related genera.

<i>Schoenoplectus acutus</i> Species of plant

Schoenoplectus acutus, called tule, common tule, hardstem tule, tule rush, hardstem bulrush, or viscid bulrush, is a giant species of sedge in the plant family Cyperaceae, native to freshwater marshes all over North America. The common name derives from the Nāhuatl word tōllin, and it was first applied by the early settlers from New Spain who recognized the marsh plants in the Central Valley of California as similar to those in the marshes around Mexico City.

<i>Schoenoplectus</i> Genus of plants

Schoenoplectus is a genus of plants in the sedge family with a cosmopolitan distribution. Note that the name bulrush is also applied to species in the unrelated genus Typha as well as to other sedges. The genus Schoenoplectus was formerly considered part of Scirpus, but recent phylogenetic data shows that they are not closely related.

<i>Typha latifolia</i> Species of flowering plant in the family Typhaceae

Typha latifolia is a perennial herbaceous wetland plant in the genus Typha. It is known in English as bulrush, and in American as broadleaf cattail. It is found as a native plant species throughout most of Eurasia and North America, and more locally in Africa and South America. The genome of T. latifolia was published in 2022.

<i>Scirpus</i> Genus of flowering plants

Scirpus is a genus of grass-like species in the sedge family Cyperaceae many with the common names club-rush, wood club-rush or bulrush. They mostly inhabit wetlands and damp locations.

<i>Schoenoplectus californicus</i> Species of grass-like plant

Schoeneoplectus californicus is a species of sedge known by the common names California bulrush, southern bulrush and giant bulrush. It is also sometimes called "tule", but the closely related Schoenoplectus acutus is the species most often referred to by that name.

<i>Phragmites australis</i> Species of grass commonly known as reed

Phragmites australis, known as the common reed, is a species of flowering plant in the grass family Poaceae. It is a wetland grass that can grow up to 20 feet tall and has a cosmopolitan distribution worldwide.

<i>Bolboschoenus fluviatilis</i> Species of flowering plant in the sedge family Cyperaceae

Bolboschoenus fluviatilis, the river bulrush, is a species of flowering plant in the sedge family, Cyperaceae. Its range includes Australia, New Zealand, New Caledonia, Canada, the United States, and northeastern Mexico. B. fluviatilis and its fruits are important as food sources for waterfowl such as geese, ducks, bitterns, and swans. It also provides cover and nesting sites for these and other species of birds, as well as small mammals. Like other Bolboschoenus species, B. fluviatilis has strong tubers and rhizomes which help to stabilize intertidal habitats by preventing erosion.

<i>Scirpus cyperinus</i> Grass-like plant of wetlands

Scirpus cyperinus, commonly known as woolgrass, is an emergent wetland herb that is native to the eastern United States and eastern Canada. Other common names include cottongrass bulrush and brown woolly sedge.

<i>Schoenoplectus pungens</i> Species of grass-like plant

Schoenoplectus pungens is a species of flowering plant in the sedge family known as common threesquare, common three-square bulrush and sharp club-rush. It is a herbaceous emergent plant that is widespread across much of North and South America as well as Europe, New Zealand and Australia.

<i>Schoenoplectus heterochaetus</i> Species of grass-like plant

Schoenoplectus heterochaetus is a species of flowering plant in the sedge family known by the common name slender bulrush. It is native to North America, where it can be found in scattered locations in Canada and the United States.

<i>Schoenoplectiella mucronata</i> Species of grass-like plant

Schoenoplectiella mucronata is a species of flowering plant in the sedge family known by the common names bog bulrush, rough-seed bulrush, and ricefield bulrush. It is native to Eurasia, Africa and Australia. It grows in moist and wet terrestrial habitat, and in shallow water. It is a perennial herb growing from a short, hard rhizome. The erect, three-angled stems grow in dense clumps and can reach a metre tall. The leaves take the form of sheaths wrapped around the base of stem, but they generally do not have blades. The inflorescence is a headlike cluster of cone-shaped spikelets accompanied by an angled, stiff bract which may look like a continuation of the stem.

<i>Bolboschoenus robustus</i> Species of flowering plant in the sedge family Cyperaceae

Bolboschoenus robustus is a species of flowering plant in the sedge family. It is known by many common names: saltmarsh bulrush, alkali bulrush, sturdy bulrush, seacoast bulrush, stout bulrush, three-cornered sedge or leafy three-cornered sedge, and seaside club-rush.

<i>Schoenoplectus subterminalis</i> Species of grass-like plant

Schoenoplectus subterminalis is a species of flowering plant in the sedge family known by the common names water bulrush, water club-rush, and swaying bulrush. It is native to North America, where it is known from many parts of the Canada and the United States. It has been common in the northeastern US and eastern Canada as well as the Great Lakes region, as well as many locations in the mountains of the West, though apparently absent from the Southwest and from most of the Great Plains.

<i>Schoenoplectus tabernaemontani</i> Species of grass-like plant

Schoenoplectus tabernaemontani is a species of flowering plant in the sedge family known by the common names softstem bulrush, grey club-rush, and great bulrush. It can be found throughout much of the world; it has been reported from every state in the United States, and from every province and territory in Canada except Nunavut. It grows in moist and wet habitat, and sometimes in shallow water.

<i>Sporobolus pumilus</i> Species of plant

Sporobolus pumilus, the saltmeadow cordgrass, also known as salt hay, is a species of cordgrass native to the Atlantic coast of the Americas, from Newfoundland south along the eastern United States to the Caribbean and north-eastern Mexico. It was reclassified after a taxonomic revision in 2014, but the older name, Spartina patens, may still be found in use. It can be found in marshlands in other areas of the world as an introduced species and often a harmful noxious weed or invasive species.

<i>Juncus roemerianus</i> Species of flowering plant

Juncus roemerianus is a species of flowering plant in the rush family known by the common names black rush, needlerush, and black needlerush. It is native to North America, where its main distribution lies along the coastline of the southeastern United States, including the Gulf Coast. It occurs from New Jersey to Texas, with outlying populations in Connecticut, New York, Mexico, and certain Caribbean islands.

<i>Schoenoplectiella hallii</i> Species of grass-like plant

Schoenoplectiella hallii is a species of flowering plant in the sedge family known by the common name Hall's bulrush. It is native to the United States, where it has a disjunct distribution, occurring in widely spaced locations throughout the Midwest and East. It is a rare plant.

<i>Bolboschoenus novae-angliae</i> Species of flowering plant in the sedge family Cyperaceae

Bolboschoenus novae-angliae, common names New England bulrush, and Salt march bulrush is a plant species found along the Atlantic seacoast of the United States from Alabama to Maine. It grows in brackish and salt-water marshes and estuaries along the coast.

Schoenoplectus etuberculatus, common name Canby's bulrush, is a plant species native to the United States. It is reported from every state on the Gulf and Atlantic coasts from eastern Texas to Delaware, plus isolated populations in Rhode Island and Missouri. It is an emergent plant growing in ponds, marshes, stream banks, etc., including in brackish water along the coast.

References

  1. 1 2 3 US Forest Service Fire Ecology
  2. Ethnobotany
  3. Blum, M. J., et al. (2005). Characterization of microsatellite loci in Schoenoplectus americanus (Cyperaceae). Molecular Ecology Notes 5:3 661-3.