Rhynchospora corniculata(Lam.) A.Gray

shortbristle horned beaksedge

WFO wfo-0000515192 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Rhynchospora corniculata, photographed by Katie Kucera
fig. a Katie Kucera, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-09-21 / obs. 170593780
Rhynchospora corniculata, photographed by Blake Bringhurst
fig. b Blake Bringhurst, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 150794121
Rhynchospora corniculata, photographed by Dan Johnson
fig. c Dan Johnson, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 102648838
Rhynchospora corniculata, photographed by Dan Johnson
fig. d Dan Johnson, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 102652381
Rhynchospora corniculata, photographed by Dan Johnson
fig. e Dan Johnson, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 101873474
Rhynchospora corniculata, photographed by Dan Johnson
fig. f Dan Johnson, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 101867175
Rhynchospora corniculata, photographed by Dan Johnson
fig. g Dan Johnson, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 101556972
Rhynchospora corniculata, photographed by Dan Johnson
fig. h Dan Johnson, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 100425295

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 19 botanical countries

Regions where Rhynchospora corniculata is native: Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Cuba AlabamaArkansasFloridaGeorgiaIllinoisIndianaKentuckyLouisianaMarylandMississippiMissouriNorth CarolinaOklahomaSouth CarolinaTennesseeTexasVirginiaCuba Delaware
Native distribution of Rhynchospora corniculata, 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
Illinois ILL
Indiana INI
Kentucky KTY
Louisiana LOU
Maryland MRY
Mississippi MSI
Missouri MSO
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 811 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -1.8 °C 6.6 °C 9.6 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 29.4 °C 32.5 °C 34.0 °C
Annual rainfall 1,137 mm 1,347 mm 1,770 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 201 mm 259 mm 357 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 811 research-grade observations of Rhynchospora corniculata 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 10 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.

  • Ceratoschoenus corniculatus (Lam.) Nees
  • Ceratoschoenus longirostris (Michx.) A.Gray
  • Rhynchospora corniculata var. corniculata
  • Rhynchospora corniculata var. interior Fernald
  • Rhynchospora corniculata var. typica Waterf.
  • Rhynchospora laxa Vahl
  • Rhynchospora longirostris (Michx.) Elliott
  • Schoenus corniculatus Lam.
  • Schoenus longirostris Michx.
  • Schoenus umbellatus Walter

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.