Rhynchospora divergensChapm. ex M.A.Curtis

spreading beaksedge

WFO wfo-0000515888 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Rhynchospora divergens, photographed by Jade Fortnash
fig. a Jade Fortnash, CC0 1.0 / 2022-05-27 / obs. 201157928
Rhynchospora divergens, photographed by John Kees
fig. b John Kees, CC0 1.0 / obs. 198496691
Rhynchospora divergens, photographed by Jay Horn
fig. c Jay Horn, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 197966081
Rhynchospora divergens, photographed by Jay Horn
fig. d Jay Horn, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 190462268
Rhynchospora divergens, photographed by Jade Fortnash
fig. e Jade Fortnash, CC0 1.0 / obs. 169651982
Rhynchospora divergens, photographed by Jade Fortnash
fig. f Jade Fortnash, CC0 1.0 / obs. 169653864
Rhynchospora divergens, photographed by Scott Ward
fig. g Scott Ward, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 166288686
Rhynchospora divergens, photographed by Jay Horn
fig. h Jay Horn, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 147646432

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 13 botanical countries

Regions where Rhynchospora divergens is native: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mexico Southeast, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, Bahamas, Belize, Cuba, Honduras AlabamaFloridaGeorgiaLouisianaMexico SoutheastMississippiNorth CarolinaSouth CarolinaTexasBelizeCubaHonduras Bahamas
Native distribution of Rhynchospora divergens, 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
Florida FLA
Georgia GEO
Louisiana LOU
Mexico Southeast MXT
Mississippi MSI
North Carolina NCA
South Carolina SCA
Texas TEX
Bahamas BAH SOUTHERN AMERICA
Belize BLZ
Cuba CUB
Honduras HON

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 110 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 7.4 °C 15.8 °C 17.3 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 30.1 °C 30.9 °C 32.1 °C
Annual rainfall 1,341 mm 1,487 mm 1,739 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 128 mm 146 mm 347 mm

It is barely found anywhere that freezes. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 110 research-grade observations of Rhynchospora divergens 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 4 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.

  • Phaeocephalum divergens (Chapm. ex M.A.Curtis) House
  • Rhynchospora divergens var. expansa Kük.
  • Rhynchospora lamprosperma C.Wright
  • Rhynchospora ravenelii M.A.Curtis

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.