Cymodocea nodosa(Ucria) Asch.

Slender Seagrass

WFO wfo-0000764882 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Cymodocea nodosa, photographed by Mirela
fig. a Mirela, CC0 1.0 / 2021-09-15 / obs. 157707847
Cymodocea nodosa, photographed by Chris Taklis
fig. b Chris Taklis, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 152718741
Cymodocea nodosa, photographed by Emanuele Santarelli
fig. c Emanuele Santarelli, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 141279143
Cymodocea nodosa, photographed by Julien Renoult
fig. d Julien Renoult, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 120502641
Cymodocea nodosa, photographed by Duarte Frade
fig. e Duarte Frade, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 82372972
Cymodocea nodosa, photographed by Chris Taklis
fig. f Chris Taklis, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 80504456
Cymodocea nodosa, photographed by Emanuele Santarelli
fig. g Emanuele Santarelli, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 78113727
Cymodocea nodosa, photographed by Chris Taklis
fig. h Chris Taklis, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 77062076

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
Smithsonian, US National Herbarium
Accession
US 3727198
Filed as
Cymodocea nodosa (Ucria) Asch.
Det. by
not recorded on this sheet
Collected
Menez, -. Cherif & -. Delashaw 1974-07-12
Origin
TN
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC0 1.0)

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 28 botanical countries

Regions where Cymodocea nodosa is native: Algeria, Canary Is., Egypt, Gambia, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Senegal, Tunisia, Western Sahara, Cyprus, East Aegean Is., Palestine, Sinai, Türkiye, Albania, Baleares, Corse, France, Greece, Italy, Kriti, NW. Balkan Pen., Portugal, Sardegna, Sicilia, Spain, Türkiye-in-Europe AlgeriaEgyptGambiaLibyaMauritaniaMoroccoSenegalTunisiaWestern SaharaCyprusEast Aegean Is.PalestineSinaiTürkiyeAlbaniaCorseFranceGreeceItalyKritiNW. Balkan Pen.PortugalSiciliaSpainTürkiye-in-Europe Canary Is.BalearesSardegna
Native distribution of Cymodocea nodosa, 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
Albania ALB EUROPE
Baleares BAL
Corse COR
France FRA
Greece GRC
Italy ITA
Kriti KRI
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Portugal POR
Sardegna SAR
Sicilia SIC
Spain SPA
Türkiye-in-Europe TUE
Algeria ALG AFRICA
Canary Is. CNY
Egypt EGY
Gambia GAM
Libya LBY
Mauritania MTN
Morocco MOR
Senegal SEN
Tunisia TUN
Western Sahara WSA
Cyprus CYP ASIA-TEMPERATE
East Aegean Is. EAI
Palestine PAL
Sinai SIN
Türkiye TUR

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 519 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 3.9 °C 9.6 °C 16.5 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 23.9 °C 26.4 °C 32.0 °C
Annual rainfall 43 mm 623 mm 1,064 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 1 mm 36 mm 142 mm

It is found where winters are cool but frost is light or absent. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 519 research-grade observations of Cymodocea nodosa 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 10 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.

  • Cymodocea aequorea K.D.Koenig
  • Cymodocea major (Willd.) Grande
  • Cymodocea preauxiana Webb & Berthel.
  • Cymodocea webbiana A.Juss.
  • Kernera nodosa (Ucria) Schult. & Schult.f.
  • Phucagrostis major Theophr. ex Cavolini
  • Phucagrostis major Willd.
  • Phucagrostis nodosa (Ucria) Kuntze
  • Zostera mediterranea DC.
  • Zostera nodosa Ucria

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.