Plant Description:
Late blooming Native Perennial Cool-Season Grass.
This short to medium lived perennial spreads by scaly, underground rhizomes and often forms dense colonies. The stalks (stems) are upright to sprawling, velvety at the nodes (joints), and 90 to 125 (150) cm tall. Leaf blades are 7 to 30 cm long, 6 to 15 (20) mm wide, and yellowgreen in color. They have a coarse or rough upper surface and are lined with tiny teeth along the margins. The flowerhead (panicle) is open, often drooping, and 10 to 20 cm long. Some panicles remain enclosed within the lower leaf sheaths and release seeds upon decay of the stem. The seed hull is covered with minute bristles that readily cling to clothing or fur for dispersal.
Landscape Use & Ecological Function:
Most common near streams, ditches, ponds, lakes, beaver areas, and freshwater marshes. Thrives best in nutrient rich mud and slow moving or stagnant water. Once established, can withstand seasonal to permanent flooding in water from 1-3ft deep.
Rice cutgrass is very valuable for wildlife habitat improvement, wetland restoration, and erosion control. The seeds are an important food source for waterfowl, small mammals, and shorebirds. Ducks pull up and consume underground stems (rhizomes). Dense colonies provide cover and habitat for fish, reptiles, and amphibians. This plant’s creeping rhizomes and spreading habit are good for sediment stabilization along the immediate shorelines of streams, ponds and lakes.
Abrasive sandpapery leaves can cut into clothing and skin.
