Fimbristylis vahlii(Lam.) Link

Vahl's fimbry

WFO wfo-0000424422 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Fimbristylis vahlii, photographed by kent ozment
fig. a kent ozment, CC0 1.0 / 2021-09-13 / obs. 157268062
Fimbristylis vahlii, photographed by Annika Lindqvist
fig. b Annika Lindqvist, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 98481828
Fimbristylis vahlii, photographed by Sam Kieschnick
fig. c Sam Kieschnick, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 96858665
Fimbristylis vahlii, photographed by Annika Lindqvist
fig. d Annika Lindqvist, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 94489968
Fimbristylis vahlii, photographed by Sam Kieschnick
fig. e Sam Kieschnick, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 92745624
Fimbristylis vahlii, photographed by Sam Kieschnick
fig. f Sam Kieschnick, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 23588389
Fimbristylis vahlii, photographed by Sam Kieschnick
fig. g Sam Kieschnick, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 5416125
Fimbristylis vahlii, photographed by Sam Kieschnick
fig. h Sam Kieschnick, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 4898712

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
03044805
Filed as
Fimbristylis vahlii (Lam.) Link
Det. by
G. C. Tucker 2022-01-01
Collected
R. C. Forzza 2012-03-19
Origin
BR
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 32 botanical countries

Regions where Fimbristylis vahlii is native: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Northwest, Mexico Southeast, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Argentina Northeast, Belize, Brazil North, French Guiana, Guyana, Leeward Is., Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Venezuela AlabamaArizonaArkansasCaliforniaFloridaGeorgiaIllinoisKansasKentuckyLouisianaMexico NortheastMexico NorthwestMexico SoutheastMississippiMissouriNebraskaNorth CarolinaOklahomaSouth CarolinaTennesseeTexasArgentina NortheastBelizeBrazil NorthFrench GuianaGuyanaNicaraguaParaguayPeruSurinameVenezuela Leeward Is.
Native distribution of Fimbristylis vahlii, 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
Arizona ARI
Arkansas ARK
California CAL
Florida FLA
Georgia GEO
Illinois ILL
Kansas KAN
Kentucky KTY
Louisiana LOU
Mexico Northeast MXE
Mexico Northwest MXN
Mexico Southeast MXT
Mississippi MSI
Missouri MSO
Nebraska NEB
North Carolina NCA
Oklahoma OKL
South Carolina SCA
Tennessee TEN
Texas TEX
Argentina Northeast AGE SOUTHERN AMERICA
Belize BLZ
Brazil North BZN
French Guiana FRG
Guyana GUY
Leeward Is. LEE
Nicaragua NIC
Paraguay PAR
Peru PER
Suriname SUR
Venezuela VEN

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 200 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -2.7 °C 3.7 °C 7.3 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 31.7 °C 34.3 °C 35.0 °C
Annual rainfall 879 mm 1,003 mm 1,446 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 135 mm 192 mm 280 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 200 research-grade observations of Fimbristylis vahlii 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 16 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.

  • Dichostylis congesta (Torr.) Palla
  • Fimbristylis apus (A.Gray) S.Watson
  • Fimbristylis breviculmis Boeckeler
  • Fimbristylis congesta Torr.
  • Fimbristylis vahlii var. subacaulis (Steud.) Boeckeler
  • Fimbristylis vincentii Steud.
  • Iria apus (A.Gray) Kuntze
  • Iria vahlii (Lam.) Kuntze
  • Isolepis hartmannii Steud.
  • Isolepis subacaulis Steud.
  • Isolepis vahlii (Lam.) Kunth
  • Isolepis vincentii Steud.
  • Kyllinga pumila var. elatior Boeckeler
  • Scirpus apus A.Gray
  • Scirpus trichophyllus Willd. ex Kunth
  • Scirpus vahlii Lam.

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.