Threeway sedge is a native of the water’s edge, found from Canada south through much of the United States wherever streambanks, bogs, and marshes create the saturated conditions it prefers. Growing in tidy upright clumps between one and three feet tall, it earns its name honestly: the leaves emerge in three distinct ranks when viewed from above, a spiral arrangement visible in few other plants and quietly arresting once noticed.

In the garden it belongs at the margins of ponds, rain gardens, and naturalistic water features, where it forms a living transition between open water and drier ground. It blooms through summer into fall with small spikes tucked into the leaf axils, inconspicuous but architecturally pleasing. It can be difficult to source commercially, but specialty native plant nurseries occasionally carry it, and the search is worth it for the right wet site.