Carex uncinataL.f.

Hawai'i birdcatching sedge

WFO wfo-0000352258 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Carex uncinata, photographed by Halema J
fig. a Halema J, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-01 / obs. 192757041
Carex uncinata, photographed by Leon Perrie
fig. b Leon Perrie, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 191534079
Carex uncinata, photographed by Penelope Noel Gillette
fig. c Penelope Noel Gillette, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 186319484
Carex uncinata, photographed by Doug Miller
fig. d Doug Miller, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 185328523
Carex uncinata, photographed by Joe Dillon
fig. e Joe Dillon, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 175935461
Carex uncinata, photographed by Sunita Singh
fig. f Sunita Singh, CC0 1.0 / obs. 168391914
Carex uncinata, photographed by Christopher Stephens
fig. g Christopher Stephens, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 127657793
Carex uncinata, photographed by Leon Perrie
fig. h Leon Perrie, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 125743350

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 6 botanical countries

Regions where Carex uncinata is native: Antipodean Is., New Zealand North, New Zealand South, Hawaii, Society Is., Tubuai Is. New Zealand NorthNew Zealand SouthHawaii Antipodean Is.Society Is.Tubuai Is.
Native distribution of Carex uncinata, 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
Antipodean Is. ATP AUSTRALASIA
New Zealand North NZN
New Zealand South NZS
Hawaii HAW PACIFIC
Society Is. SCI
Tubuai Is. TUB

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 426 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -0.8 °C 6.3 °C 10.2 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 16.4 °C 19.7 °C 22.3 °C
Annual rainfall 815 mm 1,382 mm 3,260 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 156 mm 267 mm 659 mm

It is found where winters bring light 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 426 research-grade observations of Carex uncinata 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 13 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 hamosa Thouars
  • Uncinia alopecuroides Colenso
  • Uncinia australis Pers.
  • Uncinia bractata Colenso
  • Uncinia lindleyana Kunth
  • Uncinia pedicellata Kük.
  • Uncinia polyneura Colenso
  • Uncinia rigidula Steud.
  • Uncinia scaberrima Nees
  • Uncinia uncinata (L.f.) Kük.
  • Uncinia uncinata var. laxior Carse
  • Uncinia uncinata var. pedicellata (Kük.) Petrie
  • Uncinia uncinata var. uliginosa Skottsb.

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. USDA PLANTS Database. common name, checklist symbol UNUN. public domain. 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.