Carex typhinaMichx.

cattail sedge

WFO wfo-0000352207 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Carex typhina, photographed by botanygirl
fig. a botanygirl, CC BY 4.0 / 2013-11-02 / obs. 608723
Carex typhina, photographed by Seig
fig. b Seig, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 104673802
Carex typhina, photographed by botanygirl
fig. c botanygirl, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 352797
Carex typhina, photographed by Bryan Connolly
fig. d Bryan Connolly, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 204666632
Carex typhina, photographed by Scott Ward
fig. e Scott Ward, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 199190841
Carex typhina, photographed by Scott Ward
fig. f Scott Ward, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 198735935
Carex typhina, photographed by askalotl
fig. g askalotl, CC0 1.0 / obs. 198782354
Carex typhina, photographed by Étienne Lacroix-Carignan
fig. h Étienne Lacroix-Carignan, CC0 1.0 / obs. 158961020

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
04417142
Filed as
Carex typhina Michx.
Det. by
P. Butter 2020-01-01
Collected
P. Butter 2020-07-26
Origin
US
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 33 botanical countries

Regions where Carex typhina is native: Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Ontario, Pennsylvania, Québec, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin AlabamaArkansasConnecticutGeorgiaIllinoisIndianaIowaKentuckyLouisianaMaineMarylandMassachusettsMichiganMinnesotaMississippiMissouriNew JerseyNew YorkNorth CarolinaOhioOklahomaOntarioPennsylvaniaQuébecSouth CarolinaTennesseeTexasVermontVirginiaWest VirginiaWisconsin DelawareDistrict of Columbia
Native distribution of Carex typhina, 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
Alabama ALA NORTHERN AMERICA
Arkansas ARK
Connecticut CNT
Delaware DEL
District of Columbia WDC
Georgia GEO
Illinois ILL
Indiana INI
Iowa IOW
Kentucky KTY
Louisiana LOU
Maine MAI
Maryland MRY
Massachusetts MAS
Michigan MIC
Minnesota MIN
Mississippi MSI
Missouri MSO
New Jersey NWJ
New York NWY
North Carolina NCA
Ohio OHI
Oklahoma OKL
Ontario ONT
Pennsylvania PEN
Québec QUE
South Carolina SCA
Tennessee TEN
Texas TEX
Vermont VER
Virginia VRG
West Virginia WVA
Wisconsin WIS

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 495 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -14.8 °C -4.8 °C 1.9 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 25.5 °C 28.8 °C 32.1 °C
Annual rainfall 855 mm 1,129 mm 1,346 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 97 mm 231 mm 274 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 495 research-grade observations of Carex typhina 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 1 synonym

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 squarrosa var. typhina (Michx.) Nutt.

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.