The Bladder Sedge (Carex intumescens) is a common Sedge of the wetland areas of Canada and the Eastern United States.
Grasses, Sedges and Rushes are all members of the Poales order of plants. They are often confused as they all have long thin stems, narrow leaves and parallel veins.
To help tell them apart, naturalists use the little ditty "Sedges have edges, rushes are round, grasses are hollow with nodes that abound". That is, most sedges have solid, triangular stems. Rushes have solid, round stems. Grasses have hollow stems with solid joints called nodes.
The Sedges are members of the Cyperaceae family. The Bladder Sedge is a member of the "True Sedges" or Carex genus.
The most famous Sedge, the Papyrus Sedge, was used by the Ancient Egyptians to make a paper-like material.
