Alopecurus magellanicusLam.

Alpine Meadow-Foxtail

WFO wfo-0000845609 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Alopecurus magellanicus, photographed by Syd Cannings
fig. a Syd Cannings, CC BY 4.0 / 2019-07-29 / obs. 47292122
Alopecurus magellanicus, photographed by William Stephens
fig. b William Stephens, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 67317971
Alopecurus magellanicus, photographed by William Stephens
fig. c William Stephens, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 63481857
Alopecurus magellanicus, photographed by Алексей Логинов
fig. d Алексей Логинов, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 114405364
Alopecurus magellanicus, photographed by Владимир Береснев
fig. e Владимир Береснев, CC0 1.0 / obs. 178227082
Alopecurus magellanicus, photographed by Игорь
fig. f Игорь, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 159792397
Alopecurus magellanicus, photographed by Matt Lavin
fig. g Matt Lavin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 155146769
Alopecurus magellanicus, photographed by Oskar Liset Pryds Hansen
fig. h Oskar Liset Pryds Hansen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 46998375

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 45 botanical countries

Regions where Alopecurus magellanicus is native: Falkland Is., South Georgia, Altay, Amur, Buryatiya, Kamchatka, Kazakhstan, Krasnoyarsk, Kuril Is., Magadan, Mongolia, West Siberia, Yakutiya, East European Russia, Great Britain, North European Russia, Norway, South European Russia, Svalbard, Alaska, Alberta, Aleutian Is., British Columbia, California, Colorado, Greenland, Idaho, Labrador, Manitoba, Montana, Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Ontario, Québec, Saskatchewan, Utah, Wyoming, Yukon, Argentina Northwest, Argentina South, Bolivia, Chile Central, Chile South, Ecuador, Peru Falkland Is.AltayAmurBuryatiyaKamchatkaKazakhstanKrasnoyarskMagadanMongoliaWest SiberiaYakutiyaEast European RussiaNorth European RussiaNorwaySouth European RussiaSvalbardAlaskaAlbertaBritish ColumbiaCaliforniaColoradoGreenlandIdahoLabradorManitobaMontanaNorthwest TerritoriesNunavutOntarioQuébecSaskatchewanUtahWyomingYukonArgentina NorthwestArgentina SouthBoliviaChile CentralChile SouthEcuadorPeru South Georgia
Native distribution of Alopecurus magellanicus, 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
Alaska ASK NORTHERN AMERICA
Alberta ABT
Aleutian Is. ALU
British Columbia BRC
California CAL
Colorado COL
Greenland GNL
Idaho IDA
Labrador LAB
Manitoba MAN
Montana MNT
Northwest Territories NWT
Nunavut NUN
Ontario ONT
Québec QUE
Saskatchewan SAS
Utah UTA
Wyoming WYO
Yukon YUK
Altay ALT ASIA-TEMPERATE
Amur AMU
Buryatiya BRY
Kamchatka KAM
Kazakhstan KAZ
Krasnoyarsk KRA
Kuril Is. KUR
Magadan MAG
Mongolia MON
West Siberia WSB
Yakutiya YAK
Argentina Northwest AGW SOUTHERN AMERICA
Argentina South AGS
Bolivia BOL
Chile Central CLC
Chile South CLS
Ecuador ECU
Peru PER
East European Russia RUE EUROPE
Great Britain GRB
North European Russia RUN
Norway NOR
South European Russia RUS
Svalbard SVA
Falkland Is. FAL ANTARCTICA
South Georgia SGE

Not drawn on the map: Kuril Is., Great Britain, Aleutian Is.. We hold no public-domain boundary for these regions, so they are 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.

Flowering 92 in flower of 97 examined

Peak flowering in Jun. Each bar is the share of Alopecurus magellanicus observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 92 of 97 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 8 months have fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for them. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Where it actually grows measured, from 391 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -34.2 °C -23.8 °C -5.4 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 3.2 °C 7.7 °C 17.1 °C
Annual rainfall 218 mm 420 mm 1,330 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 21 mm 58 mm 234 mm

It is found where winters are arctic. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 391 research-grade observations of Alopecurus magellanicus 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. Climate from CHELSA V2.1 (Karger et al. 2017); occurrences from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 61 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.

  • Alopecurus aequalis var. sonomensis P.Rubtzov
  • Alopecurus alpinus Sm.
  • Alopecurus alpinus f. antarcticus (Vahl) Hack.
  • Alopecurus alpinus f. lechleri Dusén
  • Alopecurus alpinus f. stejnegeri (Vasey) A.E.Porsild
  • Alopecurus alpinus subsp. alpinus
  • Alopecurus alpinus subsp. borealis (Trin.) Jurtzev
  • Alopecurus alpinus subsp. glaucus (Less.) Hultén
  • Alopecurus alpinus subsp. pseudobrachystachyus (Ovcz.) Tzvelev
  • Alopecurus alpinus subsp. stejnegeri (Vasey) Hultén
  • Alopecurus alpinus var. altaicus (Griseb.) Krylov
  • Alopecurus alpinus var. antarcticus (Vahl) Macloskie
  • Alopecurus alpinus var. antarcticus (Vahl) Macloskie & Dusén
  • Alopecurus alpinus var. aristatus Hook.f.
  • Alopecurus alpinus var. borealis (Trin.) Krylov
  • Alopecurus alpinus var. borealis (Trin.) Griseb.
  • Alopecurus alpinus var. elatus Roshev.
  • Alopecurus alpinus var. glaucus (Less.) Krylov
  • Alopecurus alpinus var. gracilior Hook.f.
  • Alopecurus alpinus var. muticus Sarfatti ex Lange
  • Alopecurus alpinus var. occidentalis (Scribn.) B.Boivin
  • Alopecurus alpinus var. robustior Hook.f.
  • Alopecurus alpinus var. robustus Druce
  • Alopecurus alpinus var. stejnegeri (Vasey) Hultén

and 37 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 ALMA8. 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.