Pale Galingale, Cyperus eragrostis, in Sedge family, #Cyperaceae. Growing outside office I have worked in for over a decade, New Cross, SE London. Rhizomatic. It's a tough perennial, introduced -- from west coast of the Americas and the Caribbean. Probably counts as invasive though it's slow-spreading. Triangular stems and tough, v-shaped leaves. #WildflowerHour #botany

Sea Club-Rush, Bolboschoenus maritimus, in the Sedge family, #Cyperaceae, in flower, Rochester, UK. The stem is triangular. There are bits of accessible saltmarsh by the esplanade. Sea Beet and Sea Arrowgrass, Sea Purslane, other #halophytes. Interesting to compare this old #saltmarsh with the restored/created saltmarsh inlets in the colossal development site known as Rochester Riverside -- which are 'to be looked at' not 'to get your feet wet looking for plants'. #botany #WildFlowerHour

#Ouroboros: Snake eating its own tail:

In the spring of 2018 I planted some #chufa (#Cyperus esculentus) tubers in a doubled-walled potato pot that sat outside all summer, and mid-October the same year I could harvest 500+ g tiger nuts. I was thrilled.

However, picking and cleaning the tubers was much more time and labour consuming than I was willing to put into it, so I have mostly used the chufa plant as a lush and decorative tuft of “grass”.

At springtime this year I found some leftover desiccated tiger nuts from the 2018 harvest in a jar and decided to see if they were still alive: On April 14th (a “root day”, according to Maria Thun) I soaked a small handful of tubers and planted them, two or three together, in small pots the next day (also a root day).

Yesterday, more than one and half month later, I noticed that a single tiger nut has germinated with two healthy looking sprouts. Not a wildly impressive germination rate, but an amazing feat nonetheless.

In comparison, tiger nuts from last year sprouted after just ten days with a near 100% germination rate.

I look forward to being able to snack on the fresh tiger nuts during the summer. 😋

/cc [ @plants | #florespondence | #gardening | #Cyperaceae ]

🔗 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyperus_esculentus