Juncus tenageiaEhrh. ex L.f.

sand rush

WFO wfo-0000777382 Accepted WFO 2026-06 6 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–f · 2 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 2 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 tenageia, photographed by jfgodeau
fig. a jfgodeau, CC BY-SA 4.0 / 2020-08-04 / obs. 90842655

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
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Accession
K000906609
Filed as
Juncus tenageia Ehrh. ex L.fil.
Det. by
Snogerup, S.
Collected
s.coll. 1823-01-01
Origin
AT
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 33 botanical countries

Regions where Juncus tenageia is native: Algeria, Eritrea, Morocco, Tunisia, Cyprus, East Aegean Is., Kazakhstan, North Caucasus, Transcaucasus, Türkiye, Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Corse, Czechia-Slovakia, East European Russia, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Krym, Netherlands, NW. Balkan Pen., Poland, Portugal, Sardegna, Sicilia, South European Russia, Spain, Switzerland, Türkiye-in-Europe, Ukraine AlgeriaEritreaMoroccoTunisiaCyprusEast Aegean Is.KazakhstanNorth CaucasusTranscaucasusTürkiyeAlbaniaAustriaBelgiumBulgariaCorseCzechia-SlovakiaEast European RussiaFranceGermanyHungaryItalyKrymNetherlandsNW. Balkan Pen.PolandPortugalSiciliaSouth European RussiaSpainSwitzerlandTürkiye-in-EuropeUkraine Sardegna
Native distribution of Juncus tenageia, 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
Albania ALB EUROPE
Austria AUT
Belgium BGM
Bulgaria BUL
Corse COR
Czechia-Slovakia CZE
East European Russia RUE
France FRA
Germany GER
Hungary HUN
Italy ITA
Krym KRY
Netherlands NET
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Poland POL
Portugal POR
Sardegna SAR
Sicilia SIC
South European Russia RUS
Spain SPA
Switzerland SWI
Türkiye-in-Europe TUE
Ukraine UKR
Cyprus CYP ASIA-TEMPERATE
East Aegean Is. EAI
Kazakhstan KAZ
North Caucasus NCS
Transcaucasus TCS
Türkiye TUR
Algeria ALG AFRICA
Eritrea ERI
Morocco MOR
Tunisia TUN

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 83 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -6.9 °C 1.0 °C 8.7 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 21.9 °C 24.1 °C 31.6 °C
Annual rainfall 559 mm 746 mm 1,519 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 19 mm 110 mm 302 mm

It is found where winters bring hard 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 83 research-grade observations of Juncus tenageia 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 13 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 gracilis Lej.
  • Juncus perpusillus (Fern.-Carv. & F.Navarro) Rivas Mart., Fern.Gonz. & Sánchez Mata
  • Juncus tenageia f. depauperatus Cout.
  • Juncus tenageia f. nanus Cout.
  • Juncus tenageia f. pauciflorus Albert
  • Juncus tenageia var. brunneus Neilr.
  • Juncus tenageia var. filiformis Gaudin
  • Juncus tenageia var. gracilis DC.
  • Juncus tenageia var. minuta Esteve & Prieto
  • Juncus tenageia var. racemosus Gaudin
  • Juncus tenageia var. strictus Gaudin
  • Juncus vaillantii Thuill.
  • Tenageia vaillantii (Thuill.) Rchb.

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.