Juncus repensMichx.

lesser creeping rush

WFO wfo-0000777159 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Juncus repens, photographed by Josh
fig. a Josh, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-05-01 / obs. 132152702
Juncus repens, photographed by Scott Ward
fig. b Scott Ward, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 114758952
Juncus repens, photographed by NC Wetlands
fig. c NC Wetlands, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 63659598
Juncus repens, photographed by Jody Shugart
fig. d Jody Shugart, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 139500586
Juncus repens, photographed by Scott Ward
fig. e Scott Ward, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 203875171
Juncus repens, photographed by John Kees
fig. f John Kees, CC0 1.0 / obs. 165030325
Juncus repens, photographed by Tom Field
fig. g Tom Field, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 161259807
Juncus repens, photographed by Matt Berger
fig. h Matt Berger, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 153996045

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 16 botanical countries

Regions where Juncus repens is native: Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Mexico Southeast, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Cuba AlabamaArkansasFloridaGeorgiaLouisianaMarylandMexico SoutheastMississippiNorth CarolinaOklahomaSouth CarolinaTennesseeTexasVirginiaCuba Delaware
Native distribution of Juncus repens, 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
Arkansas ARK
Delaware DEL
Florida FLA
Georgia GEO
Louisiana LOU
Maryland MRY
Mexico Southeast MXT
Mississippi MSI
North Carolina NCA
Oklahoma OKL
South Carolina SCA
Tennessee TEN
Texas TEX
Virginia VRG
Cuba CUB SOUTHERN AMERICA

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 256 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -0.8 °C 5.4 °C 11.5 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 29.1 °C 31.8 °C 33.8 °C
Annual rainfall 1,145 mm 1,378 mm 1,756 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 181 mm 266 mm 354 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 256 research-grade observations of Juncus repens 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.

  • Cephaloxys flabellata Desv.
  • Juncus subincurvus Steud.
  • Tristemon repens (Michx.) Raf.

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.