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Cyperus distans; photograph (c) vrxz, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) CC BY-SA(c) vrxz, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) · observed growing wild · 2026-08-12

Cyperus distans L.f.

Piedmont flatsedge; Slender cyperus

Cyperaceae · Benin, Burkina +100

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Cyperus distans, photograph (c) Jerome Ko, some rights reserved (CC BY)Cyperus distans, photograph (c) vrxz, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA)Cyperus distans, photograph (c) vrxz, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA)Cyperus distans, photograph (c) vrxz, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA)Cyperus distans, photograph (c) vrxz, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA)Cyperus distans, photograph (c) 許文俊, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) 72 photographs ›
Habitat figures
Cold floor (1 night in 100)
11.2°C
Record low 9.5 °C in 44 years, at a typical spot in the range NASA POWER
Warmest month, mean daily high
29°C
Jun, Jul and Aug at the habitat CHELSA
Rain a year (median across the range)
2,168mm
12 months of 25 mm or more in the median year CHELSA
Open-sky light
23–35DLI
Lowest to highest month (DLI) CHELSA
The year in your months, northern hemisphere
  1. Jan
  2. Feb
  3. Mar
  4. Apr
  5. May
  6. Jun
  7. Jul
  8. Aug
  9. Sep
  10. Oct
  11. Nov
  12. Dec
Wet summers: the rain comes May to September, read as a summer growing season. rain rule, CHELSA
Northern hemisphere unless you set your site. The chart is in the habitat's months.

Summary

Cyperus distans, also known as slender cyperus, is a species of sedge native to tropical and subtropical wetlands in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia (India, Indochina, China, Indonesia, Philippines, etc.), Madagascar, New Guinea, Australia, Latin America (from Mexico to Argentina), the West Indies, the southeastern United States (Florida, Georgia, North Carolina) and various oceanic islands.

Quoted from Wikipedia, "Cyperus distans", CC BY-SA 4.0.

Cultivation

Seasons

The rain rule reads a summer growing season: 70% of the median year's rain (1,425 mm of 1,982 mm) falls in May to September, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 26.4 °C against a yearly mean of 23.1 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: November to March.

Rain

1,982 mm in the median year at the habitat, 1,425 mm of it May to September. Wettest month June at 317 mm, driest month January at 43 mm. Across the grid cells of the range the year's total runs 1,045 mm to 3,257 mm, the 10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year. The median of the cells' own yearly totals, 2,168 mm, is the year's rain at the top of the page; the 1,982 mm here is the median year's, the twelve monthly medians added, which the rain rule reads. Habitat calendar, northern hemisphere; median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA.

Light

Open sky over the habitat: 23 to 35 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 16, the highest 90th-percentile month 41).

Warmth and air
Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at a typical spot in the range is 11.2 °C, the absolute minimum 9.5 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 31.4 °C. Monthly means: the coldest month's mean nightly low 14.5 °C in January (across the grid cells of the range 11.7 °C to 23.6 °C), the warmest month's mean daily high 29.1 °C in July (median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA). Cold floor: 11.2 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at a typical spot in the range (NASA POWER).

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 62 to 66% across the year (monthly means, median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

How this section is made

Each card states this species' habitat figures with their sources, and what two fixed rules read from them; nothing here says what the plant does, wants or tolerates. The rules · the terms.

Seasons. Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the grid cells of the range: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve moves 4 °C or more and the habitat lies 10° or more from the equator. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain. CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the grid cells of the range. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light. CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Temperature. NASA POWER daily minima and maxima over 44 years at a typical spot in the range, lapse-corrected +51 m to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the grid cells of the range. The cold floor is the 1st-percentile night named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity. CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the grid cells of the range.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat months, northern hemisphere

Habitat climate of Cyperus distans through the yearWarmest months June, July and August, mean daily high 29 °C; coldest month January, mean nightly low 14.5 °C; 1,982 mm of rain in the median year (the twelve monthly medians added). Medians across the range, from CHELSA; the extremes at the edge from NASA POWER. Habitat months, northern hemisphere.5°10°15°20°25°30°35°31.4° 99th-percentile day, NASA POWER9.5° lowest night in 44 years, NASA POWER°C · day and nightcold quarter0100200300400500600mm rainDLI 23–35RH 62–66%JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain medians and 10th–90th percentile across 233 habitat cells, CHELSA cold quarter: the three months around the coldest month's mean nightly low extremes over 44 years at a typical spot in the range, from NASA POWER, marked at the edge, in no month DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C21 / 18–3322 / 18–3424 / 21–3426 / 23–3428 / 24–3329 / 25–3129 / 26–3129 / 26–3028 / 25–3027 / 24–3025 / 22–3122 / 19–32
Night °C15 / 12–2415 / 12–2417 / 14–2520 / 17–2622 / 18–2524 / 19–2524 / 19–2624 / 19–2623 / 19–2522 / 18–2419 / 16–2416 / 13–24
Rain mm43 / 8–16769 / 8–18796 / 27–196142 / 56–236241 / 110–343317 / 89–487280 / 88–525316 / 51–563271 / 109–466117 / 43–31046 / 19–22444 / 11–163
DLI24 / 16–3827 / 19–4032 / 25–4134 / 29–4134 / 30–4033 / 27–3735 / 26–3932 / 26–3631 / 28–3629 / 25–3725 / 19–3623 / 16–35
RH %62 / 55–6963 / 55–6963 / 57–6964 / 60–6965 / 62–6965 / 62–6965 / 63–6966 / 64–6966 / 63–6964 / 60–6963 / 58–6962 / 55–68

Records on both sides of the equator: the 155 cells at least 10° south of it have seasons six months apart and are left out, not combined into a year no place has. These figures are across the 233 cells that remain: the 171 at least 10° north and the 62 within 10° of the equator, which stay in either way.

How this section is made
Each figure is the median across the 233 grid cells on land that hold in-range records (313 records in those cells; 2 more cells hold records but no land by the elevation layer, so those records sit at sea and the cells are left out), with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. A dash is a month one or more of those cells has no figure for in the grid (a variable CHELSA does not carry there), so no median is taken rather than one over fewer cells. Extremes and elevation were read at a typical spot in the range, cell 1806:4352 (-0.325, 37.625). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 9.5 °C, 1st-percentile night 11.2 °C, 99th-percentile day 31.4 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Across the range: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 233 distinct grid cells holding 313 of the 483 in-range records (2 further cells with records at sea, by the elevation layer, left out) on the northern side of the equator (171 cells poleward of 10° north, 155 poleward of 10° south: the two sides' seasons are not combined, and cells within 10° of the equator stay in); extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1806:4352 (its coldest month's mean nightly low nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell -0.50_37.500, lapse-corrected +51 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 1490 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across the cells of the in-range records placed well enough to read one, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeBenin, Burkina, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo, Burundi, Central African Republic, Cameroon, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Gulf of Guinea Is., Rwanda, Zaïre, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Angola, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, KwaZulu-Natal, Swaziland, Northern Provinces, Ascension, St.Helena, Comoros, Mauritius, Madagascar, Réunion, Rodrigues, Seychelles, China South-Central, Hainan, China Southeast, Japan, Nansei-shoto, Taiwan, Assam, Bangladesh, East Himalaya, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, West Himalaya, Andaman Is., Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Nicobar Is., South China Sea, Thailand, Vietnam, Borneo, Jawa, Lesser Sunda Is., Malaya, Maluku, Philippines, Sulawesi, Sumatera, New Guinea, Queensland, Western Australia, Caroline Is., Florida, North Carolina, Mexico Southwest, Mexico Southeast, Honduras, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Leeward Is. AB Ant, Puerto Rico, Trinidad-Tobago, Venezuelan Antilles, Windward Is., Venezuela, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Galápagos, Peru, Brazil Northeast, Brazil Southeast, Brazil North, Brazil South, Argentina Northwest · introduced: Fiji · regions are the level-3 units of the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions, as Kew's World Checklist records ranges, some under historical names such as Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia (how).
Map marker23.828, 120.799 · in the densest population, 231 records (16% of those in range)
Kew's description“perennial or rhizomatous geophyte” · “seasonally dry tropical” · quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Evidence usedThe map marker rests on all 1408 georeferenced records inside the native range; the climate across the range on the 313 of them in the land cells it reads, of 483 placed to within 10 km; the map shows only the 1091 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 12535 km away. 25 records outside the WCVP native range not used. 925 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km, or with no stated accuracy (admitted only as a person's observation to three decimals), and stay on the map but off the climate.
How this section is made
The map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population inside the densest 4° block of the 1408 in-range records; it decides nothing. Records outside the native range, living specimens and records marked introduced are not used; which records count.

Photographs

Cyperus distans, photograph 1did not loadCyperus distans, photograph 2did not loadCyperus distans, photograph 3did not loadCyperus distans, photograph 4did not loadCyperus distans, photograph 5did not loadCyperus distans, photograph 6did not load

Photographs: (c) Jerome Ko, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) vrxz, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) (4); (c) 許文俊, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA).

Similar habitat climate The 6 nearest by mean daily high, mean nightly low and rain, month by month. How.

Sida rhombifolia Sida rhombifolia Queensland-hemp Photo: CC0, author not statedGymnema sylvestre Gymnema sylvestre Cowplant Photo: CC0, 葉子Phragmites karka Phragmites karka Tall reed Photo: CC BY, Arnim LittekClausena excavata Clausena excavata Coffee Bush Photo: CC BY, Jacy ChenPersicaria barbata Persicaria barbata Bearded knotweed Photo: CC BY, chiuluanCommelina diffusa Commelina diffusa Climbing dayflower Photo: CC BY, Nathan Aaron

Other Cyperus 73 in the reference

Cyperus acuminatus Cyperus acuminatus Taper-tip flatsedge Photo: CC BY, Frankie SimmonsCyperus aggregatus Cyperus aggregatus Inflatedscale flatsedge Photo: CC BY, Lucas CarboneCyperus alatus Cyperus alatus Cyperaceae Photo: CC0, author not statedCyperus albostriatus Cyperus albostriatus Dwarf umbrella-grass Photo: CC BY, Malte KrömerCyperus alternifolius Cyperus alternifolius Umbrella sedge Photo: CC0, author not statedCyperus aromaticus Cyperus aromaticus Navua sedge Photo: CC BY, Guillaume DelaitreCyperus articulatus Cyperus articulatus Jointed flatsedge Photo: CC BY, Cezanne SandersCyperus bipartitus Cyperus bipartitus Shining flatsedge Photo: CC BY, Nathan AaronCyperus brevifolius Cyperus brevifolius Globe Kyllinga Photo: CC0, author not statedCyperus byssaceus Cyperus byssaceus Cyperaceae Photo: CC BY, Agustina MedinaCyperus capitatus Cyperus capitatus Cyperaceae Photo: CC BY, Duarte Frade Cyperus cephalanthus Buttonbush flatsedge all 74 ›

Names & registers

Also known as Cyperus densiflorus; Cyperus distans f. capillarioides; Cyperus distans f. pachyanthos; Cyperus distans f. pallidior; Cyperus distans subsp. capillarioides and 40 more. (GBIF Backbone)

GBIFPOWOIPNIWFOWikidataWikipediaiNaturalist

The record

Family
Cyperaceae
Described by
L.f.
Native to
Benin, Burkina, The Gambia +99
Wild records
1408 in range · 1091 open

Every figure here is derived from public data by a stated rule and names its source; nothing about this species is written for its page by a person or by AI, apart from the marked, credited quotations. How →

Where this page came from built 2026-10-22
GBIF species record gbif.species answeredasked 2026-10-22
GBIF synonyms gbif.synonyms answeredasked 2026-10-22
GBIF common names gbif.vernacular answeredasked 2026-10-22names fetched 2026-10-22
WCVP native range wcvp.distribution answeredas of 2026-06-04
GBIF occurrence records gbif.occurrences answeredas of 2026-10-21GBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.hbdw64, of 2026-10-21; 41 records within 1 km of a botanic garden, herbarium or zoo left out (29 at a botanic garden or arboretum, 6 at a herbarium, 6 at a zoo; Wikidata's list)
Habitat climate climate answeredasked 2026-10-22
Daily extremes (NASA POWER) climate.extremes answeredasked 2026-10-22NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell -0.50_37.500, lapse-corrected +51 m at 6.5 °C/km
Wikidata wikidata answeredasked 2026-10-22
Wikipedia wikipedia answeredasked 2026-10-22
iNaturalist photographs, wild inat.photos.wild answeredasked 2026-10-22from iNaturalist's open data of 2026-09-27: research-grade observations with an open-licence photograph, the 24 whose photographs iNaturalist received last (the open data holds no votes); filled 2026-10-22
iNaturalist photographs, cultivated inat.photos.cultivated not asked
GBIF media gbif.media answeredasked 2026-10-22
OpenAlex papers openalex not askednot yet asked for this reference; a later fill takes the papers from OpenAlex's snapshot

Every source is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, refused, failed, not been asked, or answered twice where one answer is taken (“not taken: two items answered”), and, for a source asked when this page was built, when: the figures are as the source held them that day; a source read from a file (Kew's World Checklist, a GBIF download) says "as of" the file's day instead; a row carried from an earlier build of the page names that build instead. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 180 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.

Cultifolio

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