Pretty small woollen head adorning the banks of some ponds and fens. The so-called Scheuchzer’sor white cottongrass (Eriophorums cheuchzeri) is 10-35 cm high. One can recognize it during the flowering season from June to August due to its white globular ears that look like little cotton wools. In the Alps the cottongrass is a protected sedge species and is growing on wet, nutrient-poor peat in fens, near ponds and banks of waters at altitudes up to 2500 m a.s.l. With sprouts (stolon) advancing far into the water, the plant contributes to the gradually silting up of alpine ponds and moors.