Carex saxatilisL.

Russet sedgerock sedge

WFO wfo-0000350993 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Carex saxatilis, photographed by Jens-Christian Svenning
fig. a Jens-Christian Svenning, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-07-26 / obs. 146429324
Carex saxatilis, photographed by Jens-Christian Svenning
fig. b Jens-Christian Svenning, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 146420947
Carex saxatilis, photographed by Jens-Christian Svenning
fig. c Jens-Christian Svenning, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 146195637
Carex saxatilis, photographed by Jens-Christian Svenning
fig. d Jens-Christian Svenning, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 146028852
Carex saxatilis, photographed by Jens-Christian Svenning
fig. e Jens-Christian Svenning, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 145454435
Carex saxatilis, photographed by Jens-Christian Svenning
fig. f Jens-Christian Svenning, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 87094081
Carex saxatilis, photographed by Syd Cannings
fig. g Syd Cannings, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 47692603
Carex saxatilis, photographed by Quinten Wiegersma
fig. h Quinten Wiegersma, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 52354148

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 22 botanical countries

Regions where Carex saxatilis is native: Kamchatka, Krasnoyarsk, Kuril Is., Magadan, Mongolia, West Siberia, Yakutiya, East European Russia, Finland, Føroyar, Great Britain, Iceland, North European Russia, Norway, Svalbard, Sweden, Greenland, Labrador, Newfoundland, Northwest Territories, Nova Scotia, Nunavut KamchatkaKrasnoyarskMagadanMongoliaWest SiberiaYakutiyaEast European RussiaFinlandIcelandNorth European RussiaNorwaySvalbardSwedenGreenlandLabradorNewfoundlandNorthwest TerritoriesNova ScotiaNunavut Føroyar
Native distribution of Carex saxatilis, 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
East European Russia RUE EUROPE
Finland FIN
Føroyar FOR
Great Britain GRB
Iceland ICE
North European Russia RUN
Norway NOR
Svalbard SVA
Sweden SWE
Kamchatka KAM ASIA-TEMPERATE
Krasnoyarsk KRA
Kuril Is. KUR
Magadan MAG
Mongolia MON
West Siberia WSB
Yakutiya YAK
Greenland GNL NORTHERN AMERICA
Labrador LAB
Newfoundland NFL
Northwest Territories NWT
Nova Scotia NSC
Nunavut NUN

Not drawn on the map: Kuril Is., Great Britain. We hold no public-domain boundary for these regions, so they are 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 366 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -33.9 °C -19.9 °C -5.6 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 10.0 °C 15.4 °C 21.2 °C
Annual rainfall 322 mm 805 mm 2,349 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 34 mm 120 mm 369 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 366 research-grade observations of Carex saxatilis 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 34 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 ambusta Boott
  • Carex compacta Dewey
  • Carex ensifolia Turcz. ex Besser
  • Carex fusca Schkuhr
  • Carex incerta Steud.
  • Carex jungenda Steud.
  • Carex miliaris f. major (Olney) Kük.
  • Carex miliaris var. major (Olney) L.H.Bailey
  • Carex ochroleuca Cham. ex Steud.
  • Carex physocarpa J.Presl & C.Presl
  • Carex procerula V.I.Krecz.
  • Carex pulla Gooden.
  • Carex pulla f. debilis Porsild
  • Carex pulla var. laxa Trautv.
  • Carex pulla var. vesicarioides Kurtz
  • Carex saxatilis subsp. laxa (Trautv.) Kalela
  • Carex saxatilis subsp. saxatilis
  • Carex saxatilis var. compacta Wimm. & Grab.
  • Carex saxatilis var. distans Wimm. & Grab.
  • Carex saxatilis var. glomerata Ewing
  • Carex saxatilis var. inflata Hartm.
  • Carex saxatilis var. laxa (Trautv.) Ohwi
  • Carex saxatilis var. major Olney
  • Carex saxatilis var. saxatilis

and 10 more.

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.