Carex hystericina

Kartesz (1994, 1999), FNA (2002, vol. 23), and Weakley and the Southeastern Flora Team (2025) accept Carex hystericina Muhl. ex Willd. According to A. Ceska (Botanical Electronic News 264: 3-4, 2/2001), Carex hystricina Schkuhr ex Willd. is preferable. He reports that L.H. Bailey (1886) erred in citing Muehlenberg, the collector but not originator of the name. Bailey changed ("corrected") the original "hystericina" to "hystricina", as the intent was to mean "porcupine-like"; Ceska believes the Botanical Code's Preamble 10 (to follow established custom) should prevail, however, recognizing that Article 60.1 likely constrains making the spelling correction (even though in 1886 Bailey did not have rules guiding such a correction).

Carex hystericina is a wide-ranging perennial graminoid found in a variety of open wetland habitats, including swamps, sedge meadows, fens, stream, pond, and lakeshores, seeps, springheads, and ditches. It occurs in North America from Newfoundland Island (historic) and Nova Scotia west to British Columbia, Canada south to western Virginia, south central Tennessee, northern Georgia, Arkansas, and western Texas west to northern California in the United States, and Mexico. There are over 1,500 estimated occurrences, which face threats from development, cattle grazing and trampling, rights-of-way maintenance, hydrological alteration, and invasive species. Little is known about trends, but with a large range extent and large number of occurrences, this species is considered secure.

Carex hystericina occurs in North America from Newfoundland Island (historic) and Nova Scotia west to British Columbia, Canada south to western Virginia, south central Tennessee, northern Georgia, Arkansas, and western Texas west to northern California in the United States, and Mexico (FNA 2002, Villasenor 2016, Weakley and the Southeastern Flora Team 2025). Range extent was estimated to be over 9 million square kilometers using herbarium specimens, photo-based observations, and NatureServe Network occurrence data documented between 1994 and 2025 (GBIF 2025, iNaturalist 2025, NatureServe 2025, RARECAT 2025, SEINet 2025).

By applying a 1 km separation distance to herbarium specimens, photo-based observations, and NatureServe Network occurrence data documented between 1994 and 2025, it is estimated that there are over 1,500 occurrences rangewide (GBIF 2025, iNaturalist 2025, NatureServe 2025, RARECAT 2025, SEINet 2025).

Although threats are not widely documented, this species is threatened by development, cattle grazing and trampling, rights-of-way maintenance, hydrological alteration, invasive species, and other threats in some places, though there is insufficient data, including anecdotal accounts, to understand scope and severity of threats for this species (NatureServe 2025). However, their overall impact is likely negligible given the species' broad range and large number of occurrences.