Carex rotundataWahlenb.

Round-fruited sedgeround sedge

WFO wfo-0000350828 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Carex rotundata, photographed by Yurii Basov
fig. a Yurii Basov, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-09-17 / obs. 157888691
Carex rotundata, photographed by Maria Khoreva
fig. b Maria Khoreva, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 158084755
Carex rotundata, photographed by Valerii Glazunov
fig. c Valerii Glazunov, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 153915705
Carex rotundata, photographed by Valerii Glazunov
fig. d Valerii Glazunov, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 148955453
Carex rotundata, photographed by Valerii Glazunov
fig. e Valerii Glazunov, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 149105944
Carex rotundata, photographed by Valerii Glazunov
fig. f Valerii Glazunov, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 92804126
Carex rotundata, photographed by Valerii Glazunov
fig. g Valerii Glazunov, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 92805508
Carex rotundata, photographed by Valerii Glazunov
fig. h Valerii Glazunov, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 90018324

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 rotundata is native: Amur, Japan, Kamchatka, Khabarovsk, Korea, Krasnoyarsk, Kuril Is., Magadan, Primorye, Sakhalin, West Siberia, Yakutiya, East European Russia, Finland, North European Russia, Norway, Sweden, Alaska, Labrador, Manitoba, Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Québec, Yukon AmurJapanKamchatkaKhabarovskKrasnoyarskMagadanPrimoryeSakhalinWest SiberiaYakutiyaEast European RussiaFinlandNorth European RussiaNorwaySwedenAlaskaLabradorManitobaNorthwest TerritoriesNunavutQuébecYukon Korea
Native distribution of Carex rotundata, 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
Amur AMU ASIA-TEMPERATE
Japan JAP
Kamchatka KAM
Khabarovsk KHA
Korea KOR
Krasnoyarsk KRA
Kuril Is. KUR
Magadan MAG
Primorye PRM
Sakhalin SAK
West Siberia WSB
Yakutiya YAK
Alaska ASK NORTHERN AMERICA
Labrador LAB
Manitoba MAN
Northwest Territories NWT
Nunavut NUN
Québec QUE
Yukon YUK
East European Russia RUE EUROPE
Finland FIN
North European Russia RUN
Norway NOR
Sweden SWE

Not drawn on the map: Kuril Is.. 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 112 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -35.1 °C -26.0 °C -10.4 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 12.1 °C 16.8 °C 19.2 °C
Annual rainfall 394 mm 691 mm 1,101 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 40 mm 97 mm 175 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 112 research-grade observations of Carex rotundata 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 11 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 ampullacea subsp. rotundata (Wahlenb.) Andersson
  • Carex melozitnensis A.E.Porsild
  • Carex rostrata subsp. rotundata (Wahlenb.) Neuman
  • Carex rostrata subsp. rotundata Kük.
  • Carex rotundata f. laeta Norm.
  • Carex rotundata f. pallida Montell
  • Carex rotundata f. viridis Montell
  • Carex rotundata var. sommeri Christ
  • Carex ruesanensis Kudô
  • Carex saxatilis var. rotundata (Wahlenb.) Gelting
  • Onkerma rotundata (Wahlenb.) 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. 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.