Juncus brachycephalus(Engelm.) Buchenau

smallhead rush

WFO wfo-0000775997 Accepted WFO 2026-06 6 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–f · 3 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 3 times, so some figures below are different views of the same plant, taken on the same day, rather than different individuals. They are usually different parts of it: the leaf, the flower, the bark.

Juncus brachycephalus, photographed by Quinten Wiegersma
fig. a Quinten Wiegersma, CC BY 4.0 / 2020-09-06 / obs. 94023039

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 26 botanical countries

Regions where Juncus brachycephalus is native: Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Brunswick, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Nova Scotia, Ohio, Oklahoma, Ontario, Pennsylvania, Québec, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, Wisconsin AlabamaArkansasColoradoConnecticutGeorgiaIllinoisIndianaMaineMassachusettsMichiganMinnesotaMissouriNew BrunswickNew JerseyNew YorkNorth DakotaNova ScotiaOhioOklahomaOntarioPennsylvaniaQuébecTennesseeVermontVirginiaWisconsin
Native distribution of Juncus brachycephalus, 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
Alabama ALA NORTHERN AMERICA
Arkansas ARK
Colorado COL
Connecticut CNT
Georgia GEO
Illinois ILL
Indiana INI
Maine MAI
Massachusetts MAS
Michigan MIC
Minnesota MIN
Missouri MSO
New Brunswick NBR
New Jersey NWJ
New York NWY
North Dakota NDA
Nova Scotia NSC
Ohio OHI
Oklahoma OKL
Ontario ONT
Pennsylvania PEN
Québec QUE
Tennessee TEN
Vermont VER
Virginia VRG
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 57 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -16.2 °C -8.1 °C 0.0 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 22.1 °C 26.0 °C 31.3 °C
Annual rainfall 901 mm 1,089 mm 1,474 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 134 mm 221 mm 274 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 57 research-grade observations of Juncus brachycephalus 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 3 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.

  • Juncus brachycephalus f. brachycephalus
  • Juncus brachycephalus f. hexandrus R.F.Martin
  • Juncus canadensis var. brachycephalus Engelm.

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.