Arrowgrass, Triglochin palustris, Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden

	Grasses of the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden
	Common Name	Scientific Name	Plant Family	Garden Location	Height	Prime Season
	Arrowgrass	Triglochin palustris L.	Juncaginaceae (Arrow-grass)	Woodland	8 to 20"	May-July
	Native Status	Arrowgrass, AKA Marsh Arrowgrass. This native perennial is found throughout North America except the warm, humid SE quadrant of the the U. S. (from Texas-Nebraska east to Virginia-Florida). In Minnesota it is found in about 25 widely scattered counties, most in the upper 1/3 of the state.
Notes	Arrowgrass is not a true grass and is not in the grass family, but is a marsh plant found in bog edges as well as calcareous sedge meadows. It grows from rhizomes and dense fibrous roots putting up erect circular stems, up to 20" high. The leaves are basal, entire, only 2-3mm wide and mostly circular but only half as long as the stems and taper to a point. The greenish-yellow flowers occur in a raceme, which elongates during flowering to hold as many as 30 to 80 flowers per raceme. The oblong seed that emerges from the seed capsule is brown, 8 to 10mm long and 1mm broad. Hazard: The green leaves of plants can contain a toxic cyanogenic glycoside, it is especially present during and just after a drought and is particularly toxic to ruminants. There are only two species of the Juncaginaceae family represented in Minnesota, this one and T. maritima, Seaside arrowgrass.


Above: Note the stem almost twice as tall as the leaves. Center: Seed capsules held upright against the stem prior to the release of seeds. Below: Close up of the small flowers. Below left: Flower detail of Arrowgrass. All photos and photo upper left ©Hugh Iltis, University of Wisconsin, Steven's Point.		Above: Botanical illustration courtesy The Freckmann Herbarium, University of Wisconsin.
	Below: Drawing of Arrowgrass courtesy USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database / Britton, N.L., and A. Brown. 1913. An illustrated flora of the northern United States, Canada and the British Possessions. 3 vols. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. Vol. 1: 92.

Notes: This grass is indigenous to the Garden. Eloise Butler catalogued it in her early Garden records. T. maritima, Seaside arrowgrass, was planted in the Garden on July 14, 1933 by Martha Crone, with plants obtained from Gertrude Gram's Garden. It is no longer extant.

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References: Plant characteristics are generally from sources 28c, W2, W3, W5 & W6. Distribution principally from W2 and W1. Planting history generally from 1, 4 & 4a. Other sources by specific reference. See Reference List for details.

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