Sedges, Grasses, and Rushes

These are some of the most interesting plants you'll ever get to know, and yet, it's so easy to pass them by. The sedges, the rushes, and the grasses. Looking over a sea of green leaves and foliage they're easy to ignore and to lump them all into what we think we know (lawn grass), but take a moment to look a little closer and you'll find each one has its own unique characteristics. 

An easy way to remember how to tell them apart -
"Sedges have edges, rushes are round, grasses have nodes from their tips to the ground."
Briefly,

• Sedges - Solid, triangular stems ("sedges have edges") - with a few exceptions. Fruit - a nutlet subtended by a scale. 
• Grasses - Hollow (between the nodes), round stems. Fruit is a grain covered by two papery scales.
• Rushes - Solid, round stems, leaves few. Fruit a several to many seeded capsule surrounded by 6 scale-like structures (tepals)

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Rushes

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Grasses

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Sedges (my favorite!) Carex

These can generally be identified by their spiked pods and three sided stems, however, the soft stem bulrush and hard stem bulrush both have rounder stems and look more like the rush (but they are a proper sedge).