Bolboschoenus robustus(Pursh) Soják

sturdy bulrush

WFO wfo-0000341717 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Bolboschoenus robustus, photographed by Nonbinary-Naturalist
fig. a Nonbinary-Naturalist, CC0 1.0 / 2022-05-10 / obs. 196644903

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

The specimen a real sheet, in a real collection

Herbarium
The New York Botanical Garden
Accession
500753
Filed as
Bolboschoenus robustus (Pursh) Soják
Det. by
S. G. Smith 1995-01-01
Collected
D. S. D. de Araújo 1976-04-09
Origin
BR
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC BY 4.0)

A real pressed plant, in a real collection, under the accession number above. Not an illustration of one. The holding institution does not serve this sheet’s image to third parties, so there is no photograph here. The record is real and the link goes to it. Where we hold no openly licensed sheet for a species this section is simply absent, and where a sheet never recorded who determined it, that field stays empty rather than being filled in. Roughly half of all herbarium sheets never recorded a determiner, which is ordinary.

Native range 31 botanical countries

Regions where Bolboschoenus robustus is native: Alabama, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mexico Northwest, Mexico Southeast, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode I., South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, Argentina Northeast, Bahamas, Bermuda, Guyana, Paraguay, Suriname, Uruguay, Venezuela AlabamaArkansasCaliforniaConnecticutFloridaGeorgiaLouisianaMaineMarylandMassachusettsMexico NorthwestMexico SoutheastMississippiNew HampshireNew JerseyNew YorkNorth CarolinaPennsylvaniaSouth CarolinaTexasVirginiaArgentina NortheastGuyanaParaguaySurinameUruguayVenezuela DelawareRhode I.BahamasBermuda
Native distribution of Bolboschoenus robustus, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Alabama ALA NORTHERN AMERICA
Arkansas ARK
California CAL
Connecticut CNT
Delaware DEL
Florida FLA
Georgia GEO
Louisiana LOU
Maine MAI
Maryland MRY
Massachusetts MAS
Mexico Northwest MXN
Mexico Southeast MXT
Mississippi MSI
New Hampshire NWH
New Jersey NWJ
New York NWY
North Carolina NCA
Pennsylvania PEN
Rhode I. RHO
South Carolina SCA
Texas TEX
Virginia VRG
Argentina Northeast AGE SOUTHERN AMERICA
Bahamas BAH
Bermuda BER
Guyana GUY
Paraguay PAR
Suriname SUR
Uruguay URU
Venezuela VEN

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Where it actually grows measured, from 260 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -2.9 °C 7.8 °C 13.5 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 25.2 °C 29.2 °C 31.7 °C
Annual rainfall 884 mm 1,262 mm 1,703 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 132 mm 261 mm 344 mm

It is found where winters bring light frost. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 260 research-grade observations of Bolboschoenus robustus that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.

Also published as 7 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Bolboschoenus robustus var. capitatus Tatanov
  • Schoenoplectus robustus (Pursh) M.T.Strong
  • Scirpus maritimus var. macrostachyus Michx.
  • Scirpus maritimus var. robustus (Pursh) Kük.
  • Scirpus robustus Pursh
  • Scirpus robustus f. protrusus Fernald
  • Scirpus robustus var. compactus Burtt Davy

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.