Carex agastachysL.f.

WFO wfo-0000344249 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 7 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 7 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.

Carex agastachys, photographed by Katrin Ellmaier
fig. a Katrin Ellmaier, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-03-30 / obs. 118246826
Carex agastachys, photographed by Thomas Ebner
fig. b Thomas Ebner, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 158073342
Carex agastachys, photographed by Thomas Ebner
fig. c Thomas Ebner, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 149798214
Carex agastachys, photographed by Thomas Ebner
fig. d Thomas Ebner, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 134307315
Carex agastachys, photographed by Thomas Ebner
fig. e Thomas Ebner, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 132360514
Carex agastachys, photographed by Thomas Ebner
fig. f Thomas Ebner, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 131196954
Carex agastachys, photographed by Thomas Ebner
fig. g Thomas Ebner, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 70959367
Carex agastachys, photographed by Thomas Ebner
fig. h Thomas Ebner, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 158073363

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.

Native range 18 botanical countries

Regions where Carex agastachys is native: Iran, North Caucasus, Transcaucasus, Türkiye, Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechia-Slovakia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Krym, Netherlands, NW. Balkan Pen., Poland, Romania, Ukraine IranNorth CaucasusTranscaucasusTürkiyeAlbaniaAustriaBelgiumBulgariaCzechia-SlovakiaGermanyGreeceHungaryKrymNetherlandsNW. Balkan Pen.PolandRomaniaUkraine
Native distribution of Carex agastachys, 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
Albania ALB EUROPE
Austria AUT
Belgium BGM
Bulgaria BUL
Czechia-Slovakia CZE
Germany GER
Greece GRC
Hungary HUN
Krym KRY
Netherlands NET
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Poland POL
Romania ROM
Ukraine UKR
Iran IRN ASIA-TEMPERATE
North Caucasus NCS
Transcaucasus TCS
Türkiye TUR

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 84 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -6.8 °C -4.6 °C -2.0 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 20.7 °C 23.3 °C 25.4 °C
Annual rainfall 635 mm 814 mm 1,566 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 99 mm 136 mm 285 mm

It is found where winters bring hard 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 84 research-grade observations of Carex agastachys 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 4 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.

  • Carex maxima var. angustifolia Albov
  • Carex mutabilis Willd.
  • Carex pendula subsp. agastachys (L.f.) Ljungstrand
  • Carex pendula var. angustifolia (Albov) Kük.

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.