Eriophorum scheuchzeriHoppe

white cottongrass

WFO wfo-0000415114 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Eriophorum scheuchzeri, photographed by Santiago Martín-Bravo
fig. a Santiago Martín-Bravo, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-08-02 / obs. 149045153

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
The New York Botanical Garden
Accession
3697347
Filed as
Eriophorum scheuchzeri subsp. arcticum M.S.Novos.
Det. by
J. M. Saarela 2015-01-01
Collected
J. M. Saarela 2014-07-23
Origin
CA
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC BY 4.0)

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 50 botanical countries

Regions where Eriophorum scheuchzeri is native: Altay, Japan, Kazakhstan, Khabarovsk, Kirgizstan, Krasnoyarsk, Magadan, Mongolia, West Siberia, Xinjiang, Yakutiya, Pakistan, West Himalaya, Austria, Czechia-Slovakia, East European Russia, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, North European Russia, Norway, NW. Balkan Pen., Romania, Spain, Svalbard, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, Alaska, Alberta, Aleutian Is., British Columbia, Colorado, Greenland, Labrador, Manitoba, Montana, New Mexico, Newfoundland, Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Ontario, Québec, Saskatchewan, Utah, Washington, Wyoming, Yukon AltayJapanKazakhstanKhabarovskKirgizstanKrasnoyarskMagadanMongoliaWest SiberiaXinjiangYakutiyaPakistanWest HimalayaAustriaCzechia-SlovakiaEast European RussiaFinlandFranceGermanyIcelandItalyNorth European RussiaNorwayNW. Balkan Pen.RomaniaSpainSvalbardSwedenSwitzerlandUkraineAlaskaAlbertaBritish ColumbiaColoradoGreenlandLabradorManitobaMontanaNew MexicoNewfoundlandNorthwest TerritoriesNunavutOntarioQuébecSaskatchewanUtahWashingtonWyomingYukon
Native distribution of Eriophorum scheuchzeri, 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
Alaska ASK NORTHERN AMERICA
Alberta ABT
Aleutian Is. ALU
British Columbia BRC
Colorado COL
Greenland GNL
Labrador LAB
Manitoba MAN
Montana MNT
New Mexico NWM
Newfoundland NFL
Northwest Territories NWT
Nunavut NUN
Ontario ONT
Québec QUE
Saskatchewan SAS
Utah UTA
Washington WAS
Wyoming WYO
Yukon YUK
Austria AUT EUROPE
Czechia-Slovakia CZE
East European Russia RUE
Finland FIN
France FRA
Germany GER
Iceland ICE
Italy ITA
North European Russia RUN
Norway NOR
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Romania ROM
Spain SPA
Svalbard SVA
Sweden SWE
Switzerland SWI
Ukraine UKR
Altay ALT ASIA-TEMPERATE
Japan JAP
Kazakhstan KAZ
Khabarovsk KHA
Kirgizstan KGZ
Krasnoyarsk KRA
Magadan MAG
Mongolia MON
West Siberia WSB
Xinjiang CHX
Yakutiya YAK
Pakistan PAK ASIA-TROPICAL
West Himalaya WHM

Not drawn on the map: Aleutian Is.. We hold no public-domain boundary for this region, so it is listed rather than guessed at.

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.

Flowering 52 in flower of 225 examined

Proportion of examined Eriophorum scheuchzeri in flower, by month
Month In flower Examined Share 95% interval
Jan 0 0 too few examined
Feb 0 0 too few examined
Mar 0 0 too few examined
Apr 0 0 too few examined
May 0 0 too few examined
Jun 14 37 38% 24% to 54%
Jul 28 105 27% 19% to 36%
Aug 9 70 13% 7% to 23%
Sep 0 12 0% 0% to 24%
Oct 1 1 too few examined
Nov 0 0 too few examined
Dec 0 0 too few examined

Peak flowering in Jun. Each bar is the share of Eriophorum scheuchzeri observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 52 of 225 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 8 months have fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for them. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Where it actually grows measured, from 1,852 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -30.7 °C -17.9 °C -7.7 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 5.9 °C 12.7 °C 18.3 °C
Annual rainfall 302 mm 909 mm 2,384 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 38 mm 147 mm 467 mm

It is found where winters are arctic. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 1,852 research-grade observations of Eriophorum scheuchzeri 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. Climate from CHELSA V2.1 (Karger et al. 2017); occurrences from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 9 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.

  • Eriophorum altaicum Meinsh.
  • Eriophorum capitatum Host
  • Eriophorum leucocephalum Boeckeler
  • Eriophorum scheuchzeri subsp. altaicum (Meinsh.) N.V.Bondareva
  • Eriophorum sphaerocephalum Wulfen
  • Plumaria scheuchzeri (Hoppe) Bubani
  • Scirpus leucocephalus (Boeckeler) T.Koyama
  • Scirpus scheuchzeri (Hoppe) Vitman
  • Scirpus scheuchzeri Hartmann

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.