Plate 1 figs. a–h · 4 observations
This species has been photographed under an open licence only 4 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.
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 21 botanical countries
| Region | TDWG code | Continent |
|---|---|---|
| China North-Central | CHN | ASIA-TEMPERATE |
| China South-Central | CHC | |
| China Southeast | CHS | |
| Japan | JAP | |
| Korea | KOR | |
| Nansei-shoto | NNS | |
| Taiwan | TAI | |
| Tibet | CHT | |
| Yemen | YEM | |
| Eritrea | ERI | AFRICA |
| Ethiopia | ETH | |
| Madagascar | MDG | |
| Mauritius | MAU | |
| Réunion | REU | |
| Rodrigues | ROD | |
| Somalia | SOM | |
| New South Wales | NSW | AUSTRALASIA |
| Norfolk Is. | NFK | |
| Queensland | QLD | |
| Myanmar | MYA | ASIA-TROPICAL |
| Vietnam | VIE |
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 131 observations
| Condition | 5th percentile | Median | 95th percentile |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coldest month, mean daily low | 2.0 °C | 12.7 °C | 19.2 °C |
| Warmest month, mean daily high | 23.3 °C | 29.1 °C | 31.5 °C |
| Annual rainfall | 1,525 mm | 3,066 mm | 4,356 mm |
| Rainfall in the driest quarter | 119 mm | 345 mm | 737 mm |
It is found where winters are cool but frost is light or absent. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 131 research-grade observations of Carex brunnea 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 29 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 acuta f. rigida Sanio
- Carex acuta var. longiglumis Cariot
- Carex acuta var. pseudaquatilis Appel
- Carex acuta var. staminifera Boott
- Carex aemulans Liebm. & Drejer
- Carex amami-oshimensis Akiyama
- Carex asperifolia Steud.
- Carex assimilis Steud.
- Carex boissieri Steud.
- Carex brunnea var. abscondita T.Koyama
- Carex brunnea var. masoalensis (Cherm.) Cherm.
- Carex brunnea var. scabrifolia Boeckeler
- Carex buruensis Nelmes
- Carex commersoniana Sieber ex Kunth
- Carex compacta Wimm.
- Carex conjugata Willd. ex Kunth
- Carex fabri Hance
- Carex gentilis var. oshimensis Kük.
- Carex gracilis var. compacta (St.-Lag.) Kük.
- Carex ischnantha Steud.
- Carex masoalensis Cherm.
- Carex mauritanica Steud.
- Carex megacarpa T.Koyama
- Carex paludosa var. aemulans (Liebm. & Drejer) Nyman
and 5 more.
Sourcesevery claim on this page
- World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
- iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
- Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
- 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.