Fuirena simplexVahl

western umbrella-sedge

WFO wfo-0000426629 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Fuirena simplex, photographed by Michelle W. （鍾偉瑋）
fig. a Michelle W. （鍾偉瑋）, CC BY 4.0 / 2020-07-04 / obs. 82468199
Fuirena simplex, photographed by Bill Levine
fig. b Bill Levine, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 28837134
Fuirena simplex, photographed by Michelle W. （鍾偉瑋）
fig. c Michelle W. （鍾偉瑋）, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 23463127
Fuirena simplex, photographed by Eric Knight
fig. d Eric Knight, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 7881839
Fuirena simplex, photographed by Sam Kieschnick
fig. e Sam Kieschnick, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 4243333
Fuirena simplex, photographed by Sam Kieschnick
fig. f Sam Kieschnick, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 2601481
Fuirena simplex, photographed by Sam Kieschnick
fig. g Sam Kieschnick, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 2472052
Fuirena simplex, photographed by Sam Kieschnick
fig. h Sam Kieschnick, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 1418378

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
1738317
Filed as
Fuirena simplex Vahl
Det. by
W. Bonet M. 2010-01-01
Collected
W. W. Thomas 2009-02-28
Origin
CU
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. We link to the digitised sheet rather than rehosting it, because the holding institutions do not serve their images to third parties reliably and we are not going to show you a picture we cannot actually deliver. 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 sheets never recorded a determiner, which is ordinary.

Native range 23 botanical countries

Regions where Fuirena simplex is native: Arkansas, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mexico Central, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Northwest, Mexico Southeast, Mexico Southwest, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, Belize, Cuba, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico ArkansasKansasKentuckyLouisianaMexico CentralMexico GulfMexico NortheastMexico NorthwestMexico SoutheastMexico SouthwestMissouriNebraskaNew MexicoOklahomaTexasBelizeCubaEl SalvadorFrench GuianaGuatemalaHondurasNicaraguaPuerto Rico
Native distribution of Fuirena simplex, 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
Arkansas ARK NORTHERN AMERICA
Kansas KAN
Kentucky KTY
Louisiana LOU
Mexico Central MXC
Mexico Gulf MXG
Mexico Northeast MXE
Mexico Northwest MXN
Mexico Southeast MXT
Mexico Southwest MXS
Missouri MSO
Nebraska NEB
New Mexico NWM
Oklahoma OKL
Texas TEX
Belize BLZ SOUTHERN AMERICA
Cuba CUB
El Salvador ELS
French Guiana FRG
Guatemala GUA
Honduras HON
Nicaragua NIC
Puerto Rico PUE

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 254 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -1.5 °C 5.1 °C 16.8 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 30.3 °C 34.3 °C 35.3 °C
Annual rainfall 282 mm 887 mm 1,246 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 3 mm 156 mm 222 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 254 research-grade observations of Fuirena simplex 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 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.

  • Fuirena aristulata (Torr.) Steud.
  • Fuirena cylindrica Bush
  • Fuirena obtusiflora Vahl
  • Fuirena primiera M.E.Jones
  • Fuirena schiedeana Kunth
  • Fuirena simplex f. macrostachya Coville
  • Fuirena squarrosa var. aristulata Torr.
  • Fuirena squarrosa var. macrostachya Britton
  • Fuirena zacapana Bartlett

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.