Cyperus sphaerocephalusVahl

WFO wfo-0000382746 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Cyperus sphaerocephalus, photographed by Mahomed Desai
fig. a Mahomed Desai, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-01-18 / obs. 110697023
Cyperus sphaerocephalus, photographed by Tony Rebelo
fig. b Tony Rebelo, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 65537167
Cyperus sphaerocephalus, photographed by Tony Rebelo
fig. c Tony Rebelo, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 65652780
Cyperus sphaerocephalus, photographed by Tony Rebelo
fig. d Tony Rebelo, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 65747950
Cyperus sphaerocephalus, photographed by Tony Rebelo
fig. e Tony Rebelo, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 64852698
Cyperus sphaerocephalus, photographed by Tony Rebelo
fig. f Tony Rebelo, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 64798422
Cyperus sphaerocephalus, photographed by Tony Rebelo
fig. g Tony Rebelo, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 64646601
Cyperus sphaerocephalus, photographed by Tony Rebelo
fig. h Tony Rebelo, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 64313020

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 12 botanical countries

Regions where Cyperus sphaerocephalus is native: Angola, Cape Provinces, Eswatini, Free State, KwaZulu-Natal, Malawi, Mozambique, Northern Provinces, Somalia, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe AngolaCape ProvincesEswatiniFree StateKwaZulu-NatalMalawiMozambiqueNorthern ProvincesSomaliaTanzaniaZambiaZimbabwe
Native distribution of Cyperus sphaerocephalus, 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.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Angola ANG AFRICA
Cape Provinces CPP
Eswatini SWZ
Free State OFS
KwaZulu-Natal NAT
Malawi MLW
Mozambique MOZ
Northern Provinces TVL
Somalia SOM
Tanzania TAN
Zambia ZAM
Zimbabwe ZIM

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 473 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -1.1 °C 2.8 °C 6.7 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 21.3 °C 23.7 °C 27.5 °C
Annual rainfall 643 mm 931 mm 1,241 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 15 mm 41 mm 60 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 473 research-grade observations of Cyperus sphaerocephalus 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 5 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 compactus var. flavissimus (Schrad.) C.B.Clarke
  • Cyperus flavissimus Schrad.
  • Cyperus niveus var. flavissimus (Schrad.) Lye
  • Cyperus obtusiflorus var. flavissimus (Schrad.) Boeckeler
  • Cyperus obtusiflorus var. sphaerocephalus (Vahl) Kük.

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. 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.