Agrostis hyemalis(Walter) Britton, Sterns & Poggenb.

winter bentgrass

WFO wfo-0000843786 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Agrostis hyemalis, photographed by Eric Knight
fig. a Eric Knight, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-04-10 / obs. 187311896

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.

The specimen a real sheet, in a real collection

Herbarium
The New York Botanical Garden
Accession
42333
Filed as
Agrostis hyemalis (Walter) Britton, Sterns & Poggenb.
Det. by
J. B. Nelson 1995-01-01
Collected
J. B. Nelson 1995-05-05
Origin
US
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC BY 4.0)

A real pressed plant, in a real collection, under the accession number above. Not an illustration of one. The holding institution does not serve this sheet’s image to third parties, so there is no photograph here. The record is real and the link goes to it. Where we hold no openly licensed sheet for a species this section is simply absent, and where a sheet never recorded who determined it, that field stays empty rather than being filled in. Roughly half of all herbarium sheets never recorded a determiner, which is ordinary.

Native range 50 botanical countries

Regions where Agrostis hyemalis is native: Kamchatka, Manchuria, Alabama, Aleutian Is., Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mexico Central, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Northwest, Mexico Southwest, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Ontario, Pennsylvania, Rhode I., South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Haiti, Peru, Puerto Rico KamchatkaManchuriaAlabamaArkansasConnecticutFloridaGeorgiaIllinoisIndianaIowaKansasKentuckyLouisianaMaineMarylandMassachusettsMexico CentralMexico NortheastMexico NorthwestMexico SouthwestMichiganMinnesotaMississippiMissouriNebraskaNew HampshireNew JerseyNew YorkNorth CarolinaOhioOklahomaOntarioPennsylvaniaSouth CarolinaSouth DakotaTennesseeTexasVermontVirginiaWest VirginiaWisconsinDominican RepublicEcuadorHaitiPeruPuerto Rico DelawareDistrict of ColumbiaRhode I.
Native distribution of Agrostis hyemalis, 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
Aleutian Is. ALU
Arkansas ARK
Connecticut CNT
Delaware DEL
District of Columbia WDC
Florida FLA
Georgia GEO
Illinois ILL
Indiana INI
Iowa IOW
Kansas KAN
Kentucky KTY
Louisiana LOU
Maine MAI
Maryland MRY
Massachusetts MAS
Mexico Central MXC
Mexico Northeast MXE
Mexico Northwest MXN
Mexico Southwest MXS
Michigan MIC
Minnesota MIN
Mississippi MSI
Missouri MSO
Nebraska NEB
New Hampshire NWH
New Jersey NWJ
New York NWY
North Carolina NCA
Ohio OHI
Oklahoma OKL
Ontario ONT
Pennsylvania PEN
Rhode I. RHO
South Carolina SCA
South Dakota SDA
Tennessee TEN
Texas TEX
Vermont VER
Virginia VRG
West Virginia WVA
Wisconsin WIS
Dominican Republic DOM SOUTHERN AMERICA
Ecuador ECU
Haiti HAI
Peru PER
Puerto Rico PUE
Kamchatka KAM ASIA-TEMPERATE
Manchuria CHM

Not drawn on the map: Aleutian Is.. We hold no public-domain boundary for this region, so it is listed rather than guessed at.

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 627 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -5.5 °C 6.8 °C 8.9 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 28.6 °C 33.5 °C 34.9 °C
Annual rainfall 920 mm 1,243 mm 1,683 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 135 mm 245 mm 344 mm

It is found where winters bring hard 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 627 research-grade observations of Agrostis hyemalis 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 22 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.

  • Agrestis hyemalis (Walter) Lunell
  • Agrostis antecedens E.P.Bicknell
  • Agrostis aphanes Trin.
  • Agrostis canina var. hyemalis (Walter) Kuntze
  • Agrostis cornucopiae Lam.
  • Agrostis cornucopiae Lam. ex Steud.
  • Agrostis geminata Trin.
  • Agrostis hiemalis var. nutkaensis (Kunth) Scribn. & Merr.
  • Agrostis hyemalis f. tuckermanii (Fernald) Scoggan
  • Agrostis hyemalis var. geminata (Trin.) Hitchc.
  • Agrostis hyemalis var. hyemalis
  • Agrostis laxiflora Poir.
  • Agrostis nootkaensis Trin.
  • Agrostis nutkaensis Kunth
  • Agrostis scabra f. tuckermanii Fernald
  • Agrostis scabra var. elatior Benth.
  • Agrostis scabra var. geminata (Trin.) Swallen
  • Cornucopiae hyemale Walter
  • Cornucopiae hyemalis Walter
  • Trichodium album J.Presl
  • Trichodium laxiflorum Muhl.
  • Trichodium laxum Schult.

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.