Aira elegansWilld. ex Roem. & Schult.

annual silver hairgrass

WFO wfo-1200034732 Accepted WFO 2026-06 7 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–g · 5 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 5 times, so some figures below are different views of the same plant, taken on the same day, rather than different individuals. They are usually different parts of it: the leaf, the flower, the bark.

Aira elegans, photographed by Kym Nicolson
fig. a Kym Nicolson, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-11-14 / obs. 168978598
Aira elegans, photographed by Claudia Schipp
fig. b Claudia Schipp, CC0 1.0 / obs. 165589234
Aira elegans, photographed by Claudia Schipp
fig. c Claudia Schipp, CC0 1.0 / obs. 165589263
Aira elegans, photographed by LJ Moore-McClelland
fig. d LJ Moore-McClelland, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 40691080
Aira elegans, photographed by LJ Moore-McClelland
fig. e LJ Moore-McClelland, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 40691058
Aira elegans, photographed by Ed Alverson
fig. f Ed Alverson, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 37490871
Aira elegans, photographed by Russell Best
fig. g Russell Best, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 75649386

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 29 botanical countries

Regions where Aira elegans is native: Algeria, Morocco, Cyprus, East Aegean Is., Iran, Lebanon-Syria, North Caucasus, Palestine, Transcaucasus, Türkiye, Albania, Austria, Baleares, Bulgaria, Corse, Czechia-Slovakia, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Kriti, Krym, NW. Balkan Pen., Romania, Sardegna, Sicilia, Spain, Switzerland, Türkiye-in-Europe AlgeriaMoroccoCyprusEast Aegean Is.IranLebanon-SyriaNorth CaucasusPalestineTranscaucasusTürkiyeAlbaniaAustriaBulgariaCorseCzechia-SlovakiaFranceGreeceHungaryItalyKritiKrymNW. Balkan Pen.RomaniaSiciliaSpainSwitzerlandTürkiye-in-Europe BalearesSardegna
Native distribution of Aira elegans, 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
Albania ALB EUROPE
Austria AUT
Baleares BAL
Bulgaria BUL
Corse COR
Czechia-Slovakia CZE
France FRA
Greece GRC
Hungary HUN
Italy ITA
Kriti KRI
Krym KRY
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Romania ROM
Sardegna SAR
Sicilia SIC
Spain SPA
Switzerland SWI
Türkiye-in-Europe TUE
Cyprus CYP ASIA-TEMPERATE
East Aegean Is. EAI
Iran IRN
Lebanon-Syria LBS
North Caucasus NCS
Palestine PAL
Transcaucasus TCS
Türkiye TUR
Algeria ALG AFRICA
Morocco MOR

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 191 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -3.2 °C 4.7 °C 10.5 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 21.3 °C 25.8 °C 33.1 °C
Annual rainfall 499 mm 835 mm 1,436 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 5 mm 128 mm 279 mm

It is found where winters bring light 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 191 research-grade observations of Aira elegans 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 28 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.

  • Aira ambigua De Not.
  • Aira byzantina F.Albers
  • Aira capillaris Host
  • Aira capillaris subsp. ambigua (Asch.) Arcang.
  • Aira capillaris var. ambigua Asch.
  • Aira capillaris var. divaricata Schur
  • Aira capillaris var. pumila Herder
  • Aira corsica Jord.
  • Aira elegans subsp. ambigua (Asch.) Holub
  • Aira elegans subsp. notarisiana (Steud.) Soják
  • Aira elegans var. biaristata Godr.
  • Aira elegantissima Schur
  • Aira elegantissima subsp. ambigua (Asch.) Dogan
  • Aira elegantissima subsp. hosteana Holub
  • Aira notarisiana Steud.
  • Aira saxatilis Salzm. ex Trin.
  • Aira sicula Tod.
  • Airella capillaris (Mutel) Dumort.
  • Airopsis capillaris Schur
  • Airopsis capillaris var. divaricataelegantissima Schur
  • Airopsis elegans (Willd. ex Roem. & Schult.) Fr. & D.Müll.
  • Airopsis setacea (Retz.) Fries
  • Aspris capillaris (Mutel) Hitchc.
  • Avena capillaris Mert. & W.D.J.Koch

and 4 more.

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. USDA PLANTS Database. common name, checklist symbol AIEL4. public domain. 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.