This bright green, grass-like plant gets its name from its resemblance to a fiber optic lamp—multiple stems with tiny flower spikes at the tips. This easy-to-grow plant grows upright when it is young, then spills gracefully over the edges of containers or garden walls as it matures.

This bright green, grass-like plant has small flower spikes at the stem tips reminiscent of those fiber optic lamps, hence the common name (it doesn’t change colors like the electric version, though).

Fiber optic grass is a fun plant (even though it isn’t really a grass) that most people acquire because of its unusual appearance. Isolepis cernua (=Scirpus cernuus), in the sedge family (Cyperaceae), is a variable evergreen species with a mop-like tuft of fine green stems.

It is found in wet places, growing as a marginal water plant or in sandy or peaty areas near the sea in its native range of western and southern Europe, the British Isles, North Africa, the west coast of North America (California to British Columbia and Alaska), and Australia and New Zealand.

These easy-to-grow plants grow upright as a young plant and then gracefully droop as they mature. The 10-12” clumps of fine, glossy, hair-like leaves can reach a spread of 20″ at maturity.