PlantKey Open ecological atlas
Planner
Home / Browse / Cyperus / Umbrella Plant
Wikimedia Commons — CC, credited & licensed per image
Cyperaceae family

Umbrella Plant Cyperus involucratus

Early-season nectar — Flowers in a late-winter / early-spring window when few other plants in our catalog bloom — valuable early forage for pollinators (relative to our catalog's bloom coverage).
Also known as: unbrella plant

Umbrella Plant is an introduced perennial grass, found in Hawaii, the lower 48 states, and the Pacific Basin. It blooms Feb – Nov.

More about this plant

Cyperus alternifolius, the umbrella papyrus, umbrella sedge or umbrella palm, is a grass-like plant in the large genus Cyperus of the sedge family Cyperaceae. The plant is native to West Africa, Madagascar and the Arabian Peninsula, but widely distributed throughout the world. It has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit. The subspecies Cyperus alternifolius ssp. flabelliformis is also known as Cyperus involucratus Rottb.. Wikipedia →

⚠ Invasive here — plant a native instead USDA + GBIF

Umbrella Plant is flagged invasive in the U.S. These natives fill a similar niche — same growth habit, bloom season, height, and region — so you keep the look and feed local wildlife instead of spreading a problem.

Canada Spikesedge
Native
Canada Spikesedge
Eleocharis geniculata
●●●○○
Sweet Acacia
Native
Sweet Acacia
Vachellia farnesiana
●●●●○
Tapered Rosette Grass
Native
Tapered Rosette Grass
Dichanthelium acuminatum
●○○○○
American Burnweed
Native
American Burnweed
Erechtites hieraciifolius
●○○○○
Matched on growth habit · bloom months · mature height · shared U.S. range (USDA + GBIF) — a starting point, not a prescription.

Growing & care

USDA PLANTS · TRY
Conditions
Sources · Conditions
Cold hardiness (derived) — Hardiness
Hardiness
≥ zone 7 derived from its U.S. range
Size & form
Sources · Size & form
USDA PLANTS — Lifespan
TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0) — Foliage
Lifespan
Perennial
Foliage
Broadleaf
In the garden
Herb layer — Sits in the herb of a layered food forest or polyculture.Open guide →
Rain garden / bioswale — Rated FACW on the wetland list — tolerates wet feet, so it suits the soggy zone of a rain garden or bioswale that catches and filters runoff.Open guide →
derived roles
The garden year bloom → fruit → fall colour
J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Bloom
Bloom (the flower's colour)
Bloom · Feb – Nov — 155 obs · Herbarium specimens — Park et al. 2023 (CC BY 4.0)
Species characteristics from USDA PLANTS (public domain) + TRY (CC BY) — general guidance, not a guarantee for your exact site. Deer "browsing" is documented palatability, not a deer-proof claim.

Wildlife & pollinators

How pollinator value is scored →
❧ Caterpillar hosts ~5 caterpillar species

Cyperus supports ~5 caterpillar species.

Native butterfly & moth caterpillars are the base of the terrestrial food web — most songbirds rear their young almost entirely on them. As a host for native Lepidoptera this is a modest genus.

Recorded feeding on Cyperus in North America, including:

Bactra lanceolana · leafroller moth Bactra verutana · Javelin Moth Cosmopterix attenuatella · cosmet moth Dasychira cinnamomea · Cinnamon Tussock Moth Elasmopalpus lignosellus · Lesser Cornstalk Borer Euphyes pilatka · Palatka Skipper
+ 4 more species →
Euphyes vestris · Dun Skipper Loxostege sticticalis · snout moth Paralipsa gularis · snout moth Spodoptera frugiperda · Fall Armyworm Moth
Keystone count (genus-level) from Warren II 2026 (CC0) · Tallamy host-use records. Named species (a documented Nearctic sample, not exhaustive) from NHM HOSTS (CC0).
Species thumbnails re-hosted from iNaturalist — Creative Commons, credited per image (hover for credit). Click any species to see it on iNaturalist. Not exhaustive; many taxa have no openly-licensed photo yet.
Sources for this entry (15) Open & cited
[01] Scientific name & family — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[02] Growth habit & duration — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[03] Native status & distribution — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[04] Common name — USDA PLANTS (via GBIF)
[05] Invasive / introduced status — US-RIIS v2.0 (USGS)
[06] Wetland indicator — USACE National Wetland Plant List (2022)
[08] Description — Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
[09] Ecological value — Warren II 2026 (CC0) · Tallamy host-use counts
[12] Cold hardiness (derived) — Derived from U.S. range × USDA PHZM zones
[13] Other common names — Wikidata (CC0)
[14] Caterpillar host count — Warren II 2026 (Dryad, CC0) · Tallamy host-use counts
[15] Caterpillar species — NHM HOSTS (CC0)
Spot an error or have a better photo? Every field links to its source, and the whole dataset is open.
Cite this page Open data, please attribute

PlantKey’s data is open under CC BY-SA 4.0 — free to reuse and adapt, with attribution and the same licence. Photos keep their own per-image licence + credit (see Sources above).

Citation

Loading…

BibTeX 
Loading…