Cyperus refractusEngelm. ex Boeckeler

reflexed flatsedge

WFO wfo-0000381098 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 2 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 2 times, so some figures below are different views of the same plant, taken on the same day, rather than different individuals. They are usually different parts of it: the leaf, the flower, the bark.

Cyperus refractus, photographed by Michael J. Papay
fig. a Michael J. Papay, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-07-18 / obs. 145208803
Cyperus refractus, photographed by Michael J. Papay
fig. b Michael J. Papay, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 152100868
Cyperus refractus, photographed by Michael J. Papay
fig. c Michael J. Papay, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 145208791
Cyperus refractus, photographed by Michael J. Papay
fig. d Michael J. Papay, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 145208622
Cyperus refractus, photographed by Michael J. Papay
fig. e Michael J. Papay, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 152101018
Cyperus refractus, photographed by Michael J. Papay
fig. f Michael J. Papay, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 145208771
Cyperus refractus, photographed by Michael J. Papay
fig. g Michael J. Papay, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 152101058
Cyperus refractus, photographed by Michael J. Papay
fig. h Michael J. Papay, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 152101085

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 14 botanical countries

Regions where Cyperus refractus is native: Alabama, Arkansas, District of Columbia, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia AlabamaArkansasGeorgiaIllinoisKentuckyMarylandMissouriNorth CarolinaPennsylvaniaSouth CarolinaTennesseeTexasVirginia District of Columbia
Native distribution of Cyperus refractus, 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
District of Columbia WDC
Georgia GEO
Illinois ILL
Kentucky KTY
Maryland MRY
Missouri MSO
North Carolina NCA
Pennsylvania PEN
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.

Also published as 2 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.

  • Cyperus refractus f. grandis Kük.
  • Cyperus retrofractus Engelm. ex Steud.

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.