Definition of cotton grass in US English:

noun

• A sedge that typically grows on swampy land in the northern hemisphere, producing tufts of long white silky hairs, which aid in the dispersal of the seeds.

  Genus Eriophorum, family Cyperaceae

  Example sentences

  • ‘A mixture of cotton grass and charcoal made a good temporary wound cover.’
  • ‘After visiting the bog one day last September, she recorded her amazement at its variety of life: ‘The leaves have all turned and the cotton grass has gone to seed.’’
  • ‘Without bogs we would lose astonishing plants like sundews, sphagnum mosses and cotton grass.’
  • ‘On one side of the water is a wide plain, speckled white with Arctic cotton grass.’
  • ‘The surrounding land drops down close to 2,500 feet, and possesses all the flora and fauna you'd expect from an Appalachian mountain range - mountain laurel, rhododendron, cotton grass, pine trees and all the deer you can fathom.’
  • ‘Skylarks sang over the wetlands, carnivorous butterworts were in violet flower and cotton grass fluffed up the land.’
  • ‘As for the descent, it was fast and sweet, with acres of cotton grass and then lower down many a meadow of buttercups.’
  • ‘There are swathes of yellow flag irises and creamy clouds of cotton grass.’
  • ‘Even cotton grass, a widespread and dominant tundra species that reproduces year after year by cloning, profits from fire.’
  • ‘Two species of sedges that form cottony seed masses are called cotton grass.’
  • ‘Once the right amount of sheep are grazing, we will soon see a transformation from a landscape that has been nibbled smooth to a glorious flowering of bushy purple heather, with cotton grass swaying in the wind.’
  • ‘She said that blanket bog was a layer of peat over wet rolling ground, which was usually home to plants like cotton grass and heather.’
  • ‘It became a Site of Special Scientific Interest ten years ago, and important plant species are birdseye primrose and the broadleaved cotton grass.’
  • ‘This we bypassed and after a pasture with cotton grass and a few little streams, we were walking a buttercup meadow back into sunny Burtersett.’
  • ‘A large owl hunted and there was an abundance of rabbits and beautiful drifts of cotton grass.’
  • ‘Most years, the herd uncannily arrives at the calving grounds just when cotton grass plants are new, tender, and loaded with nutrients - before they develop their bitter, protective poisons.’
  • ‘Bog asphodels and a circle of cotton grass brightened the rushes.’
  • ‘Hundreds of thousands of these geese come to the refuge each September to fatten up on cotton grass before heading south.’