General Plant Information (Edit)
Plant Habit: Grass/Grass-like
Life cycle: Perennial
Sun Requirements: Full Sun
Water Preferences: Wet
Wet Mesic
Mesic
Soil pH Preferences: Strongly acid (5.1 – 5.5)
Moderately acid (5.6 – 6.0)
Slightly acid (6.1 – 6.5)
Neutral (6.6 – 7.3)
Minimum cold hardiness: Zone 3 -40 °C (-40 °F) to -37.2 °C (-35)
Maximum recommended zone: Zone 10b
Plant Height: 2 feet to 3 feet
Flower Color: Yellow
Bloom Size: 1"-2"
Flower Time: Summer
Late summer or early fall
Underground structures: Rhizome
Tuber
Suitable Locations: Bog gardening
Edible Parts: Roots
Eating Methods: Raw
Cooked
Dynamic Accumulator: P (Phosphorus)
K (Potassium)
Resistances: Deer Resistant
Rabbit Resistant
Flood Resistant
Humidity tolerant
Drought tolerant
Propagation: Other methods: Other: Tubers
Pollinators: Wind
Miscellaneous: Tolerates poor soil
Conservation status: Least Concern (LC)

Conservation status:
Conservation status: Least Concern
Image
Common names
  • Yellow Nutsedge
  • Chufa Sedge
  • Weedy Nutsedge
  • Weedy Nutgrass
  • Tiger Nut
  • Yellow Nut-grass
  • Weedy Yellow Nutsedge

Photo Gallery
Location: RHS Harlow Carr gardens, Yorkshire, England UK 
Date: 2020-08-22
Yellow Nutsedge (Cyperus esculentus)
Location: Outdoors
Date: 2017-06-04
This shows the "nut" portion of nutsedge. If nutsedge is pulled a
Location: Daytona Beach, Florida
Date: 2014-08-18
Location: Toronto, Ontario
Date: 2020-08-13
Yellow Nutsedge (Cyperus esculentus) roots with small bulbs formi
Location: Toronto, Ontario
Date: 2020-08-13
Yellow Nutsedge (Cyperus esculentus) flowers.
Location: central Illinois (Sanchris State Park)
Date: 2014-09-19
Location: Fairfax, VA | July, 2022
Date: 2022-07-04
Location: Sebastian,  Florida
Date: 2020-10-15
Location: Sebastian,  Florida
Date: 2020-10-15
Location: Brownstown Pennsylvania
Date: 2016-08-19

Date: September
credit: Blahedo
Location: Jacksonville, TX
Date: 2013-08-15
Photo by kylaluaz
Location: Brownstown Pennsylvania
Date: 2016-08-19
Location: Paoli, Pennsylvania
Date: 2019-07-27
as a weed in a narrow parking lot bed
Location: Paoli, Pennsylvania
Date: 2019-07-27
close-up of flowers and leaves
Location: Jacksonville, TX
Date: 2013-08-15
Location: central Illinois
Date: 2015-09-23
This plant is tagged in:
Image

Comments:
  • Posted by farmerdill (Augusta Georgia - Zone 8a) on Sep 12, 2014 6:24 PM concerning plant:
    This is the most obnoxius weed that I have to deal with. It is not a grass but looks like one and is not fazed by most herbicides, including Roundup. It spreads by seed, rhizomes, and tubers. The tubers are edible and are useful as wildlife food. It is extremely difficult to control, and mechanical cultivation just breaks it up, and the pieces take off as new plants. It dies back in the winter, but takes off again in late spring. It does not bother me in the lawn, but it sure makes growing row crops difficult. Much worse than Bermuda for me. I am told that the last generation controlled it by making an infested field into a hog pasture or chicken yard.
  • Posted by plantladylin (Sebastian, Florida - Zone 10a) on Aug 19, 2014 1:17 PM concerning plant:
    Cyperus esculentus is a common, noxious lawn weed here in Florida, as it is in most of the United States, and it has naturalized in many parts of the world. Yellow Nutsedge can attain heights to 3 feet. It reproduces from small tubers growing from the creeping underground rhizomes and can form dense colonies. Leaves are bright green in color with a waxy appearance. The flowers are feathery, umbrella-like clusters of yellow to beige-brown spikelets that appear at the tip of a long triangular stem arising from the basal clump. Yellow Nutsedge thrives in high moisture areas with poor drainage (as in my lawn), but it occurs in dryer areas as well. The plant is resistant to systemic herbicides, and once established it is quite difficult to control. The underground tubers have high energy reserves along with multiple, viable buds and when one sprout is killed, the tuber sends up another .
  • Posted by ILPARW (southeast Pennsylvania - Zone 6b) on Jul 27, 2019 10:50 AM concerning plant:
    I normally find this Yellow Nutsedge to be a very noxious weed in gardens and landscapes in the Midwestern and Eastern USA. It is definitely native to southern Europe, Africa, the Middle East into India. It seems to also be native to the east half of the USA, as it seems that ancient American Indians cultivated the plants for the edible tubers. It is both a native and introduced species. Ancient Egypt and the ancient Middle East also cultivated this plant for the edible tubers for over 6,000 years. Wildlife also eats the tubers. In Spain the edible tubers, called earth almonds or tiger nuts, were used to produce a sweet, milk-like juice called "horchata de chufa." This perennial has shiny, yellowish-green foliage on triangular stems. It produces lots of brittle white underground roots and rhizomes, and tubers yellow to brown to black. It needs cross-pollination to produce seed from the yellowish flowers. It dislikes salt. It is easy to pull most of the plant out of the ground, but the majority of the thin rhizomes and roots and tubers stay in the ground, so it resprouts later. It takes a constant war effort to eliminate this as a weed from constant pulling, digging, and hoeing, perhaps also herbicide use on the plants when in small size. The same is true of similar noxious weeds as Goutweed, Mugwort, Canada Thistle, and Chameleon-Plant. However, if one wants to grow the tubers as an edible crop, hopefully all by itself, it is useful and nutritious for that.

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