Bulbostylis humilis(Kunth) C.B.Clarke

WFO wfo-0000342220 Accepted WFO 2026-06 6 photographs CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–f · 2 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 2 times, so some figures below are different views of the same plant, taken on the same day, rather than different individuals. They are usually different parts of it: the leaf, the flower, the bark.

Bulbostylis humilis, photographed by Tony Rebelo
fig. a Tony Rebelo, CC BY-SA 4.0 / 2022-02-08 / obs. 179512353
Bulbostylis humilis, photographed by Tony Rebelo
fig. b Tony Rebelo, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 179512390
Bulbostylis humilis, photographed by Tony Rebelo
fig. c Tony Rebelo, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 179512443
Bulbostylis humilis, photographed by kevin koen
fig. d kevin koen, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 107989208
Bulbostylis humilis, photographed by kevin koen
fig. e kevin koen, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 107989221
Bulbostylis humilis, photographed by kevin koen
fig. f kevin koen, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 107989230

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
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Accession
K000416775
Filed as
Bulbostylis humilis (Kunth) C.B.Clarke
Det. by
Clarke, C.B.
Collected
Drege 1840-01-01
Origin
ZA
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 12 botanical countries

Regions where Bulbostylis humilis is native: Botswana, Cape Provinces, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Free State, Kenya, KwaZulu-Natal, Namibia, Northern Provinces, Sudan-South Sudan, Tanzania, Yemen BotswanaCape ProvincesEswatiniEthiopiaFree StateKenyaKwaZulu-NatalNamibiaNorthern ProvincesSudan-South SudanTanzaniaYemen
Native distribution of Bulbostylis humilis, 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.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Botswana BOT AFRICA
Cape Provinces CPP
Eswatini SWZ
Ethiopia ETH
Free State OFS
Kenya KEN
KwaZulu-Natal NAT
Namibia NAM
Northern Provinces TVL
Sudan-South Sudan SUD
Tanzania TAN
Yemen YEM ASIA-TEMPERATE

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.

Also published as 15 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.

  • Abildgaardia humilis (Kunth) Lye
  • Abildgaardia sphaerocarpa (Boeckeler) Lye
  • Abildgaardia striatella (C.B.Clarke) Lye
  • Bulbostylis breviculmis (Kunth) C.B.Clarke
  • Bulbostylis sphaerocarpa (Boeckeler) C.B.Clarke
  • Bulbostylis striatella C.B.Clarke
  • Fimbristylis arenaria Nees
  • Fimbristylis sphaerocarpa (Boeckeler) K.Schum.
  • Isolepis breviculmis Kunth
  • Isolepis humilis Kunth
  • Isolepis humillima Hochst. ex C.B.Clarke
  • Scirpus arenarius (Nees) Boeckeler
  • Scirpus breviculmis (Kunth) Boeckeler
  • Scirpus nindensis Ficalho & Hiern
  • Scirpus sphaerocarpus Boeckeler

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. 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.