Carex melanostachyaM.Bieb. ex Willd.

Great Plains sedge

WFO wfo-0000348793 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Carex melanostachya, photographed by Aleksei Baushev
fig. a Aleksei Baushev, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-07 / obs. 196462082
Carex melanostachya, photographed by Татьяна Горбушина
fig. b Татьяна Горбушина, CC0 1.0 / obs. 142881474
Carex melanostachya, photographed by Anna Petrosyan
fig. c Anna Petrosyan, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 166656518
Carex melanostachya, photographed by Galyna Mykytynets
fig. d Galyna Mykytynets, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 177465636
Carex melanostachya, photographed by Юрий Данилевский (Yuriy Danilevsky)
fig. e Юрий Данилевский (Yuriy Danilevsky), CC BY 4.0 / obs. 34511510
Carex melanostachya, photographed by Юрий Данилевский (Yuriy Danilevsky)
fig. f Юрий Данилевский (Yuriy Danilevsky), CC BY 4.0 / obs. 31187156
Carex melanostachya, photographed by Анна Митрошенкова
fig. g Анна Митрошенкова, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 194669403
Carex melanostachya, photographed by KAnatoliy
fig. h KAnatoliy, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 189635131

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
05122435
Filed as
Carex melanostachya M.Bieb. ex Willd.
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 32 botanical countries

Regions where Carex melanostachya is native: Afghanistan, Altay, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kirgizstan, North Caucasus, Tadzhikistan, Transcaucasus, Türkiye, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Xinjiang, Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Central European Russia, Czechia-Slovakia, East European Russia, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Krym, Northwest European Russia, NW. Balkan Pen., Poland, Romania, South European Russia, Switzerland, Türkiye-in-Europe, Ukraine AfghanistanAltayIranIraqKazakhstanKirgizstanNorth CaucasusTadzhikistanTranscaucasusTürkiyeTurkmenistanUzbekistanXinjiangAlbaniaAustriaBulgariaCentral European RussiaCzechia-SlovakiaEast European RussiaFranceGermanyHungaryItalyKrymNorthwest European RussiaNW. Balkan Pen.PolandRomaniaSouth European RussiaSwitzerlandTürkiye-in-EuropeUkraine
Native distribution of Carex melanostachya, 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.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Albania ALB EUROPE
Austria AUT
Bulgaria BUL
Central European Russia RUC
Czechia-Slovakia CZE
East European Russia RUE
France FRA
Germany GER
Hungary HUN
Italy ITA
Krym KRY
Northwest European Russia RUW
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Poland POL
Romania ROM
South European Russia RUS
Switzerland SWI
Türkiye-in-Europe TUE
Ukraine UKR
Afghanistan AFG ASIA-TEMPERATE
Altay ALT
Iran IRN
Iraq IRQ
Kazakhstan KAZ
Kirgizstan KGZ
North Caucasus NCS
Tadzhikistan TZK
Transcaucasus TCS
Türkiye TUR
Turkmenistan TKM
Uzbekistan UZB
Xinjiang CHX

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 571 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -12.7 °C -6.0 °C -0.3 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 23.8 °C 26.5 °C 29.5 °C
Annual rainfall 375 mm 560 mm 760 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 70 mm 101 mm 149 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 571 research-grade observations of Carex melanostachya 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 10 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 bicuspidata Regel ex V.I.Krecz.
  • Carex bornmulleri Kük.
  • Carex juncoides J.Presl & C.Presl
  • Carex ledebourii Boiss. & Buhse
  • Carex nutans Host
  • Carex nutans f. sulcata (Schur) Kük.
  • Carex nutans var. major Boeckeler
  • Carex ripariaeformis Litv.
  • Carex sulcata Schur
  • Vignea juncoides (J.Presl & C.Presl) Opiz

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.