Soft rush

Juncus effusus

Family · Juncaceae · Harmless

The tuft of smooth green stems that appears where the soil never dries. A patch of rushes in a meadow is a map of the groundwater drawn at the surface.

Where it grows

Streams and ditches · Fields and pasture · Uplands

Also known as

common rush, bulrush

In flower

How to tell it

Cylindrical, smooth, node-free stems that reveal a continuous white spongy pith when split. The flowers emerge from the side, two thirds up, not from the tip.

What it is confused with

Sedges

Carex spp.

Harmless confusion

An old, infallible rule: sedges have a three-sided stem you can feel by rolling it between your fingers; rushes are round. Neither is dangerous.

What it is for

Mats, chair seats and baskets across the Peninsula, and the white pith served as a wick in oil lamps. Where there is rush, there is water within half a metre almost all year.

Where it occurs

Iberian Peninsula

Azores

Madeira

Each square is an area with recorded observations of this plant. The lighter background is the set of areas where any of the entries has been observed, and serves as a reference. Note what this is not: it is not where the plant lives, it is where people record it, so trails and towns always look fuller than the mountains. Data from GBIF.

Sources

Flora-On

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