Carex nardina(Hornem.) Fr.

spike sedge

WFO wfo-0000349163 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 2 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 2 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 nardina, photographed by Trevor Van Loon
fig. a Trevor Van Loon, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-08-01 / obs. 151314882
Carex nardina, photographed by Trevor Van Loon
fig. b Trevor Van Loon, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 144015736
Carex nardina, photographed by Trevor Van Loon
fig. c Trevor Van Loon, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 151315062
Carex nardina, photographed by Trevor Van Loon
fig. d Trevor Van Loon, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 151314797
Carex nardina, photographed by Trevor Van Loon
fig. e Trevor Van Loon, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 151315053
Carex nardina, photographed by Trevor Van Loon
fig. f Trevor Van Loon, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 144015269
Carex nardina, photographed by Trevor Van Loon
fig. g Trevor Van Loon, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 144015281
Carex nardina, photographed by Trevor Van Loon
fig. h Trevor Van Loon, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 144015287

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 24 botanical countries

Regions where Carex nardina is native: Magadan, Iceland, Norway, Svalbard, Sweden, Alaska, Alberta, British Columbia, California, Colorado, Greenland, Idaho, Labrador, Montana, Nevada, New York, Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Ontario, Québec, Utah, Washington, Wyoming, Yukon MagadanIcelandNorwaySvalbardSwedenAlaskaAlbertaBritish ColumbiaCaliforniaColoradoGreenlandIdahoLabradorMontanaNevadaNew YorkNorthwest TerritoriesNunavutOntarioQuébecUtahWashingtonWyomingYukon
Native distribution of Carex nardina, 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
Alaska ASK NORTHERN AMERICA
Alberta ABT
British Columbia BRC
California CAL
Colorado COL
Greenland GNL
Idaho IDA
Labrador LAB
Montana MNT
Nevada NEV
New York NWY
Northwest Territories NWT
Nunavut NUN
Ontario ONT
Québec QUE
Utah UTA
Washington WAS
Wyoming WYO
Yukon YUK
Iceland ICE EUROPE
Norway NOR
Svalbard SVA
Sweden SWE
Magadan MAG ASIA-TEMPERATE

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 62 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -32.7 °C -20.1 °C -10.5 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 5.8 °C 13.3 °C 17.3 °C
Annual rainfall 224 mm 600 mm 2,985 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 20 mm 81 mm 300 mm

It is found where winters are arctic. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 62 research-grade observations of Carex nardina 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 16 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 chordorrhiza subsp. gynocrates Nyman
  • Carex dioica subsp. gynocrates (Nyman) Hultén
  • Carex dioica var. gynocrates (Wormsk.) Ostenf.
  • Carex elyniformis A.E.Porsild
  • Carex gynocrates Wormsk. ex Drejer
  • Carex gynocrates Wormsk.
  • Carex hepburnii Boott
  • Carex nardina subsp. hepburnii (Boott) Á.Löve, D.Löve & B.M.Kapoor
  • Carex nardina var. atriceps Kük.
  • Carex stantonensis M.E.Jones
  • Kobresia arctica N.A.Ivanova
  • Kobresia hepburnii (Boott) N.A.Ivanova
  • Kobresia nardina Hornem.
  • Vignea gynocrates (Nyman) Soják
  • Vignea hepburnii (Boott) Soják
  • Vignea nardina (Hornem.) Soják

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.