Carex breviculmisR.Br.

Asian shortstem sedge

WFO wfo-0000345071 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Carex breviculmis, photographed by Tom Ferguson
fig. a Tom Ferguson, CC0 1.0 / 2022-02-06 / obs. 178408455
Carex breviculmis, photographed by Paul Bell-Butler
fig. b Paul Bell-Butler, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 175024542
Carex breviculmis, photographed by Cara-Lisa Schloots
fig. c Cara-Lisa Schloots, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 170011218
Carex breviculmis, photographed by Thomas Mesaglio
fig. d Thomas Mesaglio, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 165079816
Carex breviculmis, photographed by Thomas Mesaglio
fig. e Thomas Mesaglio, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 151577574
Carex breviculmis, photographed by Thomas Mesaglio
fig. f Thomas Mesaglio, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 144846905
Carex breviculmis, photographed by Ed Wilson
fig. g Ed Wilson, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 126266705
Carex breviculmis, photographed by 葉子
fig. h 葉子, CC0 1.0 / obs. 120169421

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 31 botanical countries

Regions where Carex breviculmis is native: Afghanistan, Amur, China North-Central, China South-Central, China Southeast, Inner Mongolia, Japan, Khabarovsk, Korea, Manchuria, Nansei-shoto, Primorye, Taiwan, Borneo, East Himalaya, India, Jawa, Myanmar, Nepal, New Guinea, Philippines, Sulawesi, Vietnam, West Himalaya, New South Wales, New Zealand North, Norfolk Is., Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria AfghanistanAmurChina North-CentralChina South-CentralChina SoutheastInner MongoliaJapanKhabarovskManchuriaPrimoryeTaiwanBorneoEast HimalayaIndiaJawaMyanmarNepalNew GuineaPhilippinesSulawesiVietnamWest HimalayaNew South WalesNew Zealand NorthQueenslandSouth AustraliaTasmaniaVictoria KoreaNansei-shotoNorfolk Is.
Native distribution of Carex breviculmis, 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
Afghanistan AFG ASIA-TEMPERATE
Amur AMU
China North-Central CHN
China South-Central CHC
China Southeast CHS
Inner Mongolia CHI
Japan JAP
Khabarovsk KHA
Korea KOR
Manchuria CHM
Nansei-shoto NNS
Primorye PRM
Taiwan TAI
Borneo BOR ASIA-TROPICAL
East Himalaya EHM
India IND
Jawa JAW
Myanmar MYA
Nepal NEP
New Guinea NWG
Philippines PHI
Sulawesi SUL
Vietnam VIE
West Himalaya WHM
New South Wales NSW AUSTRALASIA
New Zealand North NZN
Norfolk Is. NFK
Queensland QLD
South Australia SOA
Tasmania TAS
Victoria VIC

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.

Flowering 48 in flower of 87 examined

Peak flowering in Aug. Each bar is the share of Carex breviculmis observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 48 of 87 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 4 months have fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for them. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Where it actually grows measured, from 349 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -6.6 °C 2.3 °C 13.2 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 16.5 °C 21.3 °C 30.0 °C
Annual rainfall 550 mm 1,006 mm 3,100 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 50 mm 171 mm 475 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 349 research-grade observations of Carex breviculmis 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. Climate from CHELSA V2.1 (Karger et al. 2017); occurrences from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 52 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 boniana Boeckeler
  • Carex breviculmis f. discoidea (Boott) Kük.
  • Carex breviculmis f. fibrillosa (Franch. & Sav.) Kük.
  • Carex breviculmis f. longiaristata Kük.
  • Carex breviculmis subsp. fibrillosa (Franch. & Sav.) T.Koyama
  • Carex breviculmis var. leucochlora (Bunge) Makino
  • Carex breviculmis var. pluricostata Kük.
  • Carex breviculmis var. stipitata Kük.
  • Carex breviculmis var. typica Domin
  • Carex brevis S.T.Blake
  • Carex bulbostylis Kük.
  • Carex candolleana H.Lév. & Vaniot
  • Carex candolleana var. longebracteata H.Lév. & Vaniot
  • Carex candolleana var. pubescens H.Lév. & Vaniot
  • Carex conorrhyncha Nelmes
  • Carex cuspidosa Dunn
  • Carex discoidea Boott
  • Carex eggytera Steud.
  • Carex engleriana H.Lév. & Vaniot
  • Carex fibrillosa Franch. & Sav.
  • Carex filiculmis Franch. & Sav.
  • Carex filiculmis var. gracillima Akiyama
  • Carex geihokuensis K.Okamoto
  • Carex heribaudiana H.Lév. & Vaniot

and 28 more.

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. USDA PLANTS Database. common name, checklist symbol CABR5. public domain. 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.