Carex distachyaDesf.

WFO wfo-0000346124 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 6 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 6 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 distachya, photographed by Christian Berg
fig. a Christian Berg, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-09 / obs. 198322071
Carex distachya, photographed by Santiago Martín-Bravo
fig. b Santiago Martín-Bravo, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 188567303
Carex distachya, photographed by Christian Berg
fig. c Christian Berg, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 198322124
Carex distachya, photographed by Santiago Martín-Bravo
fig. d Santiago Martín-Bravo, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 188567335
Carex distachya, photographed by Ljaž
fig. e Ljaž, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 195566474
Carex distachya, photographed by Santiago Martín-Bravo
fig. f Santiago Martín-Bravo, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 128670074
Carex distachya, photographed by Daniel Cahen
fig. g Daniel Cahen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 35753507
Carex distachya, photographed by Julien Renoult
fig. h Julien Renoult, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 187374091

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

Regions where Carex distachya is native: Algeria, Canary Is., Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, East Aegean Is., Türkiye, Albania, Baleares, Bulgaria, Corse, France, Greece, Italy, Kriti, NW. Balkan Pen., Portugal, Sardegna, Sicilia, Spain, Türkiye-in-Europe AlgeriaLibyaMoroccoTunisiaEast Aegean Is.TürkiyeAlbaniaBulgariaCorseFranceGreeceItalyKritiNW. Balkan Pen.PortugalSiciliaSpainTürkiye-in-Europe Canary Is.BalearesSardegna
Native distribution of Carex distachya, 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
Baleares BAL
Bulgaria BUL
Corse COR
France FRA
Greece GRC
Italy ITA
Kriti KRI
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Portugal POR
Sardegna SAR
Sicilia SIC
Spain SPA
Türkiye-in-Europe TUE
Algeria ALG AFRICA
Canary Is. CNY
Libya LBY
Morocco MOR
Tunisia TUN
East Aegean Is. EAI ASIA-TEMPERATE
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 167 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -1.0 °C 4.1 °C 10.1 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 23.5 °C 27.3 °C 31.4 °C
Annual rainfall 570 mm 921 mm 1,356 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 18 mm 74 mm 170 mm

It is found where winters bring light 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 167 research-grade observations of Carex distachya 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 23 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 bina Schkuhr
  • Carex depressa subsp. dimorpha (Brot.) K.Richt.
  • Carex dimorpha Brot.
  • Carex distachya Willd.
  • Carex distachya f. gynobasica Maire
  • Carex distachya f. sarda (Link) Boeckeler
  • Carex gynandra Sieber ex Kunth
  • Carex gynomane Bertol.
  • Carex latisquama (Cuatrec.) Pau
  • Carex linkii Willd.
  • Carex linkii var. olyssiponensis (Steud.) Nyman
  • Carex linkii var. sarda (Link) Nyman
  • Carex longiseta Brot.
  • Carex longiseta var. latisquama Cuatrec.
  • Carex muelleri Steud.
  • Carex nigra f. bina (Schkuhr) Asch. & Graebn.
  • Carex nigra var. bina (Schkuhr) Rouy
  • Carex olbiensis var. angustifolia Rohlena
  • Carex olyssiponensis Steud.
  • Carex sarda Link
  • Carex tuberosa Degl.
  • Edritria linkii (Willd.) Raf.
  • Loxotrema tuberosa (Degl.) 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. 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.