White cotton-wool heads nod in clusters on stems above wet moorland, though the plant is a sedge and not a grass
Common cottongrass, Eriophorum angustifolium.
Nature · Wildflowers & flowers
Common cottongrass
Native · cottony fruiting heads from early summer · bogs, wet heaths and moorland
Eriophorum angustifolium — Cyperaceae
The white cotton-wool tufts that dot boggy moors and heaths are the fruiting heads of this sedge, not flowers, and each hair helps the wind carry a seed. It is a key plant of blanket bog and wet heath. Despite the name it is a sedge, not a grass.
How to spot them
- ▸Several drooping white cottony heads on each stem — not one, as in hare's-tail cottongrass
- ▸Dark green, narrow, three-angled leaves; the plant is up to 75 cm (Wildlife Trusts) and grows from creeping rhizomes
- ▸Grows on wet moorland, bog and heath, often among sphagnum
- ▸Look-alike: hare's-tail cottongrass has a single, erect, egg-shaped head and grows in dense tussocks
How to know it
In Sussex it was used to stuff pillows, and Scottish medical practitioners used it to dress wounds in the First World War
Common cottongrass, per the Wildlife Trusts.
Its genus name means 'wool-bearing', and its species name means 'narrow-leaved'
Eriophorum angustifolium — common cottongrass.
The 'cotton' is a tuft of bristles that lets the wind carry the seed across boggy moors
Common cottongrass.
Cousin of a single-headed, tussock-forming species on which the larvae of the large heath butterfly principally feed
Common cottongrass — the butterfly's main foodplant is hare's-tail cottongrass, E. vaginatum.
Quick-fire facts
- •Family Cyperaceae, the sedges — not a true grass
- •The Wildlife Trusts note that pillows in Sussex were stuffed with its fluff, and that it was used by Scottish doctors to dress wounds in the First World War
- •Eriophorum means 'wool-bearing'; angustifolium means 'narrow-leaved'
- •Height up to 75 cm; native to heathland, moorland and freshwater wetlands, according to the Wildlife Trusts
- •The 'cotton' is not petals but bristles attached to the fruit, helping wind dispersal
- •Cottongrasses are peat formers alongside sphagnum in blanket bog
- •The single-headed hare's-tail cottongrass is the chief food plant of the large heath butterfly larva
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Sources
- The Wildlife Trusts — Common cotton-grass