Carex demissaHornem.

WFO wfo-0000345960 Accepted WFO 2026-06 3 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–c · 1 observation

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 1 time, 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 demissa, photographed by aroche
fig. a aroche, CC BY 4.0 / 2012-07-22 / obs. 12850526
Carex demissa, photographed by aroche
fig. b aroche, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 12850524
Carex demissa, photographed by aroche
fig. c aroche, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 12850525

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
The New York Botanical Garden
Accession
04083710
Filed as
Carex demissa Hornem.
Det. by
not recorded on this sheet
Collected
not recorded
Origin
not recorded
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 41 botanical countries

Regions where Carex demissa is native: Azores, Canary Is., Madeira, Afghanistan, Iran, North Caucasus, West Siberia, West Himalaya, Albania, Austria, Baltic States, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Central European Russia, Corse, Czechia-Slovakia, Denmark, Finland, Føroyar, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, North European Russia, Northwest European Russia, Norway, NW. Balkan Pen., Poland, Portugal, Romania, Sicilia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine AfghanistanIranNorth CaucasusWest SiberiaWest HimalayaAlbaniaAustriaBaltic StatesBelarusBelgiumBulgariaCentral European RussiaCorseCzechia-SlovakiaDenmarkFinlandFranceGermanyGreeceHungaryIcelandIrelandItalyNetherlandsNorth European RussiaNorthwest European RussiaNorwayNW. Balkan Pen.PolandPortugalRomaniaSiciliaSpainSwedenSwitzerlandUkraine AzoresCanary Is.MadeiraFøroyar
Native distribution of Carex demissa, 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
Albania ALB EUROPE
Austria AUT
Baltic States BLT
Belarus BLR
Belgium BGM
Bulgaria BUL
Central European Russia RUC
Corse COR
Czechia-Slovakia CZE
Denmark DEN
Finland FIN
Føroyar FOR
France FRA
Germany GER
Great Britain GRB
Greece GRC
Hungary HUN
Iceland ICE
Ireland IRE
Italy ITA
Netherlands NET
North European Russia RUN
Northwest European Russia RUW
Norway NOR
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Poland POL
Portugal POR
Romania ROM
Sicilia SIC
Spain SPA
Sweden SWE
Switzerland SWI
Ukraine UKR
Afghanistan AFG ASIA-TEMPERATE
Iran IRN
North Caucasus NCS
West Siberia WSB
Azores AZO AFRICA
Canary Is. CNY
Madeira MDR
West Himalaya WHM ASIA-TROPICAL

Not drawn on the map: Great Britain. We hold no public-domain boundary for this region, so it is listed rather than guessed at.

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 464 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -5.8 °C 0.7 °C 6.8 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 16.4 °C 21.1 °C 24.8 °C
Annual rainfall 662 mm 1,254 mm 2,493 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 107 mm 190 mm 473 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 464 research-grade observations of Carex demissa 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 21 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 flava f. demissa (Hornem.) Kük.
  • Carex flava subsp. demissa (Hornem.) O.Bolòs, Masalles & Vigo
  • Carex flava subsp. marssonii (Auersw.) Callmé
  • Carex flava subsp. marssonii (Auersw.) K.Richt.
  • Carex flava subsp. oedocarpa (Andersson) P.D.Sell
  • Carex flava var. marssonii (Auersw.) T.Marsson
  • Carex flava var. oedocarpa (Andersson) Blytt
  • Carex gogelana Podp.
  • Carex marssonii Auersw.
  • Carex oederi f. breviorifolia Pau & Font Quer
  • Carex oederi f. oedocarpa (Andersson) Kük.
  • Carex oederi f. pinguis Neuman
  • Carex oederi subsp. demissa (Hornem.) C.Vicioso
  • Carex oederi subsp. oedocarpa (Andersson) C.Hartm.
  • Carex oederi subsp. oedocarpa Andersson
  • Carex oedocarpa Andersson
  • Carex tumidicarpa Andersson
  • Carex tumidicarpa subsp. cedercreutzii Fagerstr.
  • Carex viridula subsp. cedercreutzii (Fagerstr.) B.Schmid
  • Carex viridula subsp. oedocarpa (Andersson) B.Schmid
  • Carex viridula var. oedocarpa (Andersson) Wilmott

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.