tall cottongrass, Eriophorum angustifolium

Also called bog cotton, this was another plant we saw on the Botany Club foray back in '17. Cottongrasses are more often recognized when they've produced their white cottony seed heads. A plant of open bogs, it takes great advantage of wind. At the flowering stage you see here, it is wind pollinated. Don't those trifid pistils look well designed to comb pollen from the air? Then the seeds are distributed by wind. This cottongrass is circumboreal, with us it grows in AK, CO, IA, ID, IL, IN(R), ME, Mi, MN, MT, ND, NE, NH(E), NM, NY, OR, SD, VT, WA, WY, across Canada, and on GL and SPM. Mackinac Co MI, 5/27/17. Sedge family, Cyperaceae.