Description: This is one of the commonest native species of wet pasture, bogs, wet woods and a variety of other damp, mostly acidic, situations. Locally it can dominate the vegetation.

The plant has no proper leaves but consists of upright stiff pointed stems ranging from about a foot to five feet tall with the brownish tufts of flowers produced laterally about a fifth of the way down from the apparent top of the stem. The var. compactus resembles Juncus conglomeratus superficially in that the flowers are in a tight, not a loose, cluster, but it lacks the obvious longitudinal ridging of the stem of that species.

All names: Juncus effusus L.; Juncus communis auct.

Distribution Map from NBN: Juncus effusus at National Biodiversity Network mapping facility, data for UK.

iNaturalist: Juncus effusus at iNaturalist World Species Observations database.