Eriophorum tenellumNutt.

Few-nerved cottongrassRough cottongrassfewnerved cottongrass

WFO wfo-0000415132 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Eriophorum tenellum, photographed by Quinten Wiegersma
fig. a Quinten Wiegersma, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-07-23 / obs. 145837031
Eriophorum tenellum, photographed by Lynn Harper
fig. b Lynn Harper, CC0 1.0 / obs. 141540933
Eriophorum tenellum, photographed by agbelliveau
fig. c agbelliveau, CC0 1.0 / obs. 88349946
Eriophorum tenellum, photographed by Owen Strickland
fig. d Owen Strickland, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 85593649
Eriophorum tenellum, photographed by Norma Malinowski
fig. e Norma Malinowski, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 84587755
Eriophorum tenellum, photographed by Reuven Martin
fig. f Reuven Martin, CC0 1.0 / obs. 52359832
Eriophorum tenellum, photographed by Chris Hoess
fig. g Chris Hoess, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 480766
Eriophorum tenellum, photographed by Benoit Renaud
fig. h Benoit Renaud, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 150510658

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 22 botanical countries

Regions where Eriophorum tenellum is native: Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Labrador, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Brunswick, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Nunavut, Ontario, Pennsylvania, Prince Edward I., Québec, Rhode I., Vermont, Wisconsin ConnecticutIllinoisIndianaLabradorMaineMassachusettsMichiganMinnesotaNew BrunswickNew HampshireNew JerseyNew YorkNewfoundlandNova ScotiaNunavutOntarioPennsylvaniaPrince Edward I.QuébecVermontWisconsin Rhode I.
Native distribution of Eriophorum tenellum, 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
Connecticut CNT NORTHERN AMERICA
Illinois ILL
Indiana INI
Labrador LAB
Maine MAI
Massachusetts MAS
Michigan MIC
Minnesota MIN
New Brunswick NBR
New Hampshire NWH
New Jersey NWJ
New York NWY
Newfoundland NFL
Nova Scotia NSC
Nunavut NUN
Ontario ONT
Pennsylvania PEN
Prince Edward I. PEI
Québec QUE
Rhode I. RHO
Vermont VER
Wisconsin WIS

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 344 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -17.5 °C -13.2 °C -7.5 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 18.7 °C 23.5 °C 26.0 °C
Annual rainfall 829 mm 1,182 mm 1,797 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 88 mm 224 mm 365 mm

It is found where winters are severely cold. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 344 research-grade observations of Eriophorum tenellum 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 6 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 strictum R.Br.
  • Eriophorum tenellum f. axillare Lakela
  • Eriophorum tenellum f. gorhami Raymond
  • Eriophorum tenellum f. tenellum
  • Eriophorum tenellum var. monticola Fernald
  • Eriophorum tenellum var. tenellum

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.