Cyperus esculentusL.

yellow nutsedge

WFO wfo-0000372964 Accepted WFO 2026-06 7 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–g

Cyperus esculentus, photographed by Henry "Nick" Robertson
fig. a Henry "Nick" Robertson, CC BY-SA 4.0 / 2021-08-17 / obs. 151484693
Cyperus esculentus, photographed by Shaun Swanepoel
fig. b Shaun Swanepoel, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 175292267
Cyperus esculentus, photographed by natalie
fig. c natalie, CC0 1.0 / obs. 147015341
Cyperus esculentus, photographed by Henry "Nick" Robertson
fig. d Henry "Nick" Robertson, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 155751982
Cyperus esculentus, photographed by Susan Christman Williams
fig. e Susan Christman Williams, CC0 1.0 / obs. 150665092
Cyperus esculentus, photographed by Loopy30
fig. f Loopy30, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 149631708
Cyperus esculentus, photographed by Renato Robert
fig. g Renato Robert, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 145453640

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.

Flowering n = 285 observations

Peak flowering in Aug, from 285 community-annotated observations worldwide. This is a global aggregate, not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres, and citizen-science records cluster near cities, at weekends, and in spring. Where a species has fewer than 30 annotated records we do not draw this chart at all.

Also published as 57 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.

  • Chlorocyperus aureus (K.Richt.) Palla ex Kneuck.
  • Chlorocyperus phymatodes (Muhl.) Palla
  • Cyperus aureus Ten.
  • Cyperus aureus subsp. esculentus (L.) Nyman
  • Cyperus bahiensis Steud.
  • Cyperus buchananii Boeckeler
  • Cyperus bulamensis Steud.
  • Cyperus chrysostachys Boeckeler
  • Cyperus damiettensis A.Dietr.
  • Cyperus esculentus f. angustispicatus (Britton) Fernald
  • Cyperus esculentus f. esculentus
  • Cyperus esculentus f. evolutus C.B.Clarke
  • Cyperus esculentus f. macrostachyus (Boeckeler) Fernald
  • Cyperus esculentus f. princeps C.B.Clarke
  • Cyperus esculentus prol. aureus (K.Richt.) P.Fourn.
  • Cyperus esculentus prol. sativus (Boeckeler) P.Fourn.
  • Cyperus esculentus subsp. aureus K.Richt.
  • Cyperus esculentus var. angustispicatus Britton
  • Cyperus esculentus var. cyclolepis Boeckeler ex Kük.
  • Cyperus esculentus var. esculentus
  • Cyperus esculentus var. heermannii (Buckley) Britton
  • Cyperus esculentus var. helodes (Schrad. ex Nees) C.B.Clarke
  • Cyperus esculentus var. hermannii Britton
  • Cyperus esculentus var. leptostachyus Boeckeler

and 33 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.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice, no toxicity claim and no native range, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.