[ noun ] grasslike or rushlike plant growing in wet places having solid stems, narrow grasslike leaves and spikelets of inconspicuous flowers <noun.plant>
Sedge \Sedge\, n. [OE. segge, AS. secg; akin to LG. segge; -- probably named from its bladelike appearance, and akin to L. secare to cut, E. saw a cutting instrument; cf. Ir. seisg, W. hesg. Cf. {Hassock}, {Saw} the instrument.] 1. (Bot.) Any plant of the genus {Carex}, perennial, endogenous, innutritious herbs, often growing in dense tufts in marshy places. They have triangular jointless stems, a spiked inflorescence, and long grasslike leaves which are usually rough on the margins and midrib. There are several hundred species.
Note: The name is sometimes given to any other plant of the order {Cyperace[ae]}, which includes {Carex}, {Cyperus}, {Scirpus}, and many other genera of rushlike plants.
2. (Zo["o]l.) A flock of herons.
{Sedge hen} (Zo["o]l.), the clapper rail. See under 5th {Rail}.
{Sedge warbler} (Zo["o]l.), a small European singing bird ({Acrocephalus phragmitis}). It often builds its nest among reeds; -- called also {sedge bird}, {sedge wren}, {night warbler}, and {Scotch nightingale}.
I have stood there at the height of a sedge hatch on a June night and lost my head and my nerve utterly at the sight of a surface boiling with feeding trout. There, too, I suffered an early, indelible trauma.
IT SEEMS unlikely that there is any small garden in Britain, other than Thorpe Park Cottage at Thorpe-le-Soken, Essex, which grows more than 200 species and varieties of ornamental grass, sedge and rush.