Carex texensis(Torr. ex L.H.Bailey) L.H.Bailey

Texas sedge

WFO wfo-0000351963 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Carex texensis, photographed by Josh
fig. a Josh, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-04-30 / obs. 132151238
Carex texensis, photographed by Bill Sheehan
fig. b Bill Sheehan, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 67546890
Carex texensis, photographed by Douglas Goldman
fig. c Douglas Goldman, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 47810687
Carex texensis, photographed by Alison Northup
fig. d Alison Northup, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 198340781
Carex texensis, photographed by Nathan Aaron
fig. e Nathan Aaron, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 197079151
Carex texensis, photographed by Ashwin Srinivasan
fig. f Ashwin Srinivasan, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 192608579
Carex texensis, photographed by Scott Ward
fig. g Scott Ward, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 192286815
Carex texensis, photographed by Joshua Soileau
fig. h Joshua Soileau, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 120270589

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 17 botanical countries

Regions where Carex texensis is native: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia AlabamaArkansasFloridaGeorgiaIllinoisKansasKentuckyLouisianaMarylandMississippiMissouriNebraskaNorth CarolinaSouth CarolinaTennesseeTexasVirginia
Native distribution of Carex texensis, 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
Alabama ALA NORTHERN AMERICA
Arkansas ARK
Florida FLA
Georgia GEO
Illinois ILL
Kansas KAN
Kentucky KTY
Louisiana LOU
Maryland MRY
Mississippi MSI
Missouri MSO
Nebraska NEB
North Carolina NCA
South Carolina SCA
Tennessee TEN
Texas TEX
Virginia VRG

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 125 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -6.4 °C -0.5 °C 7.1 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 28.1 °C 31.3 °C 33.8 °C
Annual rainfall 988 mm 1,278 mm 1,548 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 172 mm 257 mm 311 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 125 research-grade observations of Carex texensis 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 4 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 retroflexa var. texensis (Torr. ex L.H.Bailey) Fernald
  • Carex retroflexa var. texensis (Torr. ex L.H.Bailey) Kük.
  • Carex retroflexa var. texensis Fernald
  • Carex rosea var. texensis Torr. ex L.H.Bailey

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.