Carex collinsiiNutt.

Collins' sedge

WFO wfo-0000345608 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Carex collinsii, photographed by Bonnie Semmling
fig. a Bonnie Semmling, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-08-21 / obs. 152342782
Carex collinsii, photographed by Bonnie Semmling
fig. b Bonnie Semmling, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 139132089
Carex collinsii, photographed by Bonnie Semmling
fig. c Bonnie Semmling, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 139132214
Carex collinsii, photographed by Alan Weakley
fig. d Alan Weakley, CC0 1.0 / obs. 68650960
Carex collinsii, photographed by Scott Ward
fig. e Scott Ward, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 196267042
Carex collinsii, photographed by Scott Ward
fig. f Scott Ward, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 196306479
Carex collinsii, photographed by Chris Hoess
fig. g Chris Hoess, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 148017013
Carex collinsii, photographed by Alan Weakley
fig. h Alan Weakley, CC0 1.0 / obs. 91625210

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 13 botanical countries

Regions where Carex collinsii is native: Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode I., South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia AlabamaConnecticutGeorgiaMarylandNew JerseyNew YorkNorth CarolinaPennsylvaniaSouth CarolinaTennesseeVirginia DelawareRhode I.
Native distribution of Carex collinsii, 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
Connecticut CNT
Delaware DEL
Georgia GEO
Maryland MRY
New Jersey NWJ
New York NWY
North Carolina NCA
Pennsylvania PEN
Rhode I. RHO
South Carolina SCA
Tennessee TEN
Virginia VRG

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 150 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -5.3 °C -1.8 °C 1.6 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 24.3 °C 29.7 °C 31.7 °C
Annual rainfall 1,134 mm 1,191 mm 1,335 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 249 mm 270 mm 289 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 150 research-grade observations of Carex collinsii 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 3 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 michauxii Dewey
  • Carex subulata Michx.
  • Olotrema collinsii (Nutt.) Raf.

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.