Plate 1 figs. a–e · 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.
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 6 botanical countries
| Region | TDWG code | Continent |
|---|---|---|
| Argentina Northwest | AGW | SOUTHERN AMERICA |
| Argentina South | AGS | |
| Bolivia | BOL | |
| Chile Central | CLC | |
| Chile South | CLS | |
| Falkland Is. | FAL | ANTARCTICA |
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 132 observations
| Condition | 5th percentile | Median | 95th percentile |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coldest month, mean daily low | -4.1 °C | 2.9 °C | 6.9 °C |
| Warmest month, mean daily high | 10.9 °C | 17.7 °C | 24.6 °C |
| Annual rainfall | 641 mm | 1,831 mm | 3,569 mm |
| Rainfall in the driest quarter | 84 mm | 177 mm | 558 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 132 research-grade observations of Carex fuscula 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 Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.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 28 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 araucana Phil.
- Carex brachycephala Poepp. ex Boott
- Carex calbucana Phil.
- Carex distenta Kunze ex Kunth
- Carex fuscula f. elatior Kurtz
- Carex fuscula f. fuscula
- Carex fuscula f. indecora (Kunth) Kük.
- Carex fuscula subsp. fuscula
- Carex fuscula var. ciliata Boeckeler
- Carex fuscula var. distenta (Kunze ex Kunth) Kük.
- Carex fuscula var. fuscula
- Carex fuscula var. hieronymi (Boeckeler) Kük.
- Carex fuscula var. pseudoextensa (Kük.) Kük.
- Carex hieronymi Boeckeler
- Carex huitensis Steud.
- Carex hymenina Nees ex Boott
- Carex inconspicua Steud.
- Carex inconspicua f. indecora (Kunth) Kük.
- Carex inconspicua var. fuscula d'Urv.
- Carex inconspicua var. fuscula (d'Urv.) Kük.
- Carex inconspicua var. hieronymi (Boeckeler) Kük.
- Carex inconspicua var. pseudoextensa Kük.
- Carex incurva var. humilis Macloskie
- Carex indecora Boott
and 4 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.
- USDA PLANTS Database. common name, checklist symbol CADI17. public domain. 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.