Alopecurus myosuroidesHuds.

black-grassslender meadow foxtail

WFO wfo-0000845620 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Alopecurus myosuroides, photographed by John Lyden
fig. a John Lyden, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-01 / obs. 202677160

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 41 botanical countries

Regions where Alopecurus myosuroides is native: Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Afghanistan, Buryatiya, Cyprus, East Aegean Is., Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kirgizstan, Lebanon-Syria, North Caucasus, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Tadzhikistan, Transcaucasus, Türkiye, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Assam, Pakistan, West Himalaya, Albania, Belgium, Bulgaria, Corse, France, Greece, Italy, Kriti, Krym, Netherlands, NW. Balkan Pen., Portugal, Romania, Sicilia, South European Russia, Spain, Türkiye-in-Europe AlgeriaEgyptLibyaTunisiaAfghanistanBuryatiyaCyprusEast Aegean Is.IranIraqKazakhstanKirgizstanLebanon-SyriaNorth CaucasusPalestineSaudi ArabiaTadzhikistanTranscaucasusTürkiyeTurkmenistanUzbekistanAssamPakistanWest HimalayaAlbaniaBelgiumBulgariaCorseFranceGreeceItalyKritiKrymNetherlandsNW. Balkan Pen.PortugalRomaniaSiciliaSouth European RussiaSpainTürkiye-in-Europe
Native distribution of Alopecurus myosuroides, 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.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Afghanistan AFG ASIA-TEMPERATE
Buryatiya BRY
Cyprus CYP
East Aegean Is. EAI
Iran IRN
Iraq IRQ
Kazakhstan KAZ
Kirgizstan KGZ
Lebanon-Syria LBS
North Caucasus NCS
Palestine PAL
Saudi Arabia SAU
Tadzhikistan TZK
Transcaucasus TCS
Türkiye TUR
Turkmenistan TKM
Uzbekistan UZB
Albania ALB EUROPE
Belgium BGM
Bulgaria BUL
Corse COR
France FRA
Greece GRC
Italy ITA
Kriti KRI
Krym KRY
Netherlands NET
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Portugal POR
Romania ROM
Sicilia SIC
South European Russia RUS
Spain SPA
Türkiye-in-Europe TUE
Algeria ALG AFRICA
Egypt EGY
Libya LBY
Tunisia TUN
Assam ASS ASIA-TROPICAL
Pakistan PAK
West Himalaya WHM

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 66 in flower of 72 examined

Proportion of examined Alopecurus myosuroides in flower, by month
Month In flower Examined Share 95% interval
Jan 0 0 too few examined
Feb 0 0 too few examined
Mar 6 7 86% 49% to 97%
Apr 25 27 93% 77% to 98%
May 25 28 89% 73% to 96%
Jun 9 9 100% 70% to 100%
Jul 0 0 too few examined
Aug 1 1 too few examined
Sep 0 0 too few examined
Oct 0 0 too few examined
Nov 0 0 too few examined
Dec 0 0 too few examined

Peak flowering in Jun. Each bar is the share of Alopecurus myosuroides 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. 66 of 72 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 1,011 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -4.1 °C -0.7 °C 4.9 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 20.1 °C 25.4 °C 30.6 °C
Annual rainfall 526 mm 739 mm 1,130 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 60 mm 144 mm 222 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 1,011 research-grade observations of Alopecurus myosuroides 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 36 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 adanensis Dogan
  • Alopecurus affinis Desv.
  • Alopecurus agrestis L.
  • Alopecurus agrestis var. decumbens Pauquy
  • Alopecurus agrestis var. geniculatus Koeler
  • Alopecurus agrestis var. lutescens Tinant
  • Alopecurus agrestis var. minimus Post
  • Alopecurus agrestis var. minor Gray
  • Alopecurus agrestis var. pulchellus Adamovic
  • Alopecurus agrestis var. purpurascens (Link) Nyman
  • Alopecurus agrestis var. scaber Lej.
  • Alopecurus agrestis var. segetalis Lej. & Courtois
  • Alopecurus agrestis var. tonsus C.I.Blanche ex Boiss.
  • Alopecurus agrestis var. versicolor Biasol.
  • Alopecurus agrestis var. viridis Kuntze
  • Alopecurus caerulescens C.Presl
  • Alopecurus coerulescens Steud. & Hochst.
  • Alopecurus creticus Willk.
  • Alopecurus creticus var. corcyrensis Halácsy
  • Alopecurus creticus var. submuticus Rohlena
  • Alopecurus myosuroides f. levis Pamp.
  • Alopecurus myosuroides subsp. tonsus (C.I.Blanche ex Boiss.) Dogan
  • Alopecurus myosuroides subvar. breviaristatus Asch. & Graebn.
  • Alopecurus myosuroides var. breviaristatus Asch. & Graebn.

and 12 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. 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.