Folks like your seed guy is the reason I posted this. But in fairness to him, there's eggheads that call themselves botanists and such that say they are the same plant. Others with similar credentials disagree, so it depends on who you talk to on the issue. I don't understand their system of classification, but here at PCP University we take more of a common sense approach.

When two plants can grow side by side with each other for decades and never once cross, that's pretty strong evidence that they are different plants. And the most important judge of all, that being the wild turkey, most definitely considers them to be different plants. Turkeys will dig up every chufa plant in the field, and they won't eat nutgrass if they are starving.

I ran my flock of hens and poults out of my chufa patch at my house yesterday, and they are already digging them up. The plants are less than 60 days old, but they are starting to put on tubers and the turkeys won't wait for them to mature.