Anthoxanthum aristatumBoiss.

annual vernal-grassannual vernalgrass

WFO wfo-0000848095 Accepted WFO 2026-06 3 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–c · 2 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 2 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.

Anthoxanthum aristatum, photographed by Andre Hosper
fig. a Andre Hosper, CC BY 4.0 / 2019-06-21 / obs. 42660311
Anthoxanthum aristatum, photographed by Peter de Lange
fig. b Peter de Lange, CC0 1.0 / obs. 5737773
Anthoxanthum aristatum, photographed by Peter de Lange
fig. c Peter de Lange, CC0 1.0 / obs. 5737772

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 14 botanical countries

Regions where Anthoxanthum aristatum is native: Azores, Canary Is., Morocco, East Aegean Is., Albania, Baleares, Bulgaria, Corse, France, Italy, NW. Balkan Pen., Portugal, Sardegna, Spain MoroccoEast Aegean Is.AlbaniaBulgariaCorseFranceItalyNW. Balkan Pen.PortugalSpain AzoresCanary Is.BalearesSardegna
Native distribution of Anthoxanthum aristatum, 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
Baleares BAL
Bulgaria BUL
Corse COR
France FRA
Italy ITA
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Portugal POR
Sardegna SAR
Spain SPA
Azores AZO AFRICA
Canary Is. CNY
Morocco MOR
East Aegean Is. EAI ASIA-TEMPERATE

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 160 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -4.3 °C 1.0 °C 7.1 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 21.9 °C 28.7 °C 33.7 °C
Annual rainfall 563 mm 1,160 mm 1,494 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 31 mm 186 mm 294 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 160 research-grade observations of Anthoxanthum aristatum 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 29 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 sommierianum Ricci
  • Anthoxanthum aetnense Lojac.
  • Anthoxanthum angustifolium Planellas
  • Anthoxanthum aristatum subsp. aristatum
  • Anthoxanthum aristatum subsp. puelii (Lecoq & Lamotte) P.Silva
  • Anthoxanthum aristatum var. laxiflorum Chaub. ex St.-Amans
  • Anthoxanthum aristatum var. nanum Le Gall
  • Anthoxanthum aristatum var. welwitschii Ricci
  • Anthoxanthum carrenianum Parl.
  • Anthoxanthum laxiflorum Bubani
  • Anthoxanthum laxiflorum var. carrenianum (Parl.) Font Quer
  • Anthoxanthum lloydii Jord. ex Boreau
  • Anthoxanthum myrthense Lojac.
  • Anthoxanthum nipponicum var. aristatum (Boiss.) Y.N.Lee
  • Anthoxanthum odoratum subsp. godronii K.Richt.
  • Anthoxanthum odoratum var. aristatum (Boiss.) Trab.
  • Anthoxanthum odoratum var. aristatum (Boiss.) Coss. & Durieu
  • Anthoxanthum odoratum var. laxiflorum St.-Amans
  • Anthoxanthum odoratum var. majus Foucaud
  • Anthoxanthum odoratum var. nanum Mutel
  • Anthoxanthum odoratum var. puelii (Lecoq & Lamotte) Coss. & Durieu
  • Anthoxanthum odoratum var. welwitschii Ricci
  • Anthoxanthum ovatum subsp. aristatum (Boiss.) Litard.
  • Anthoxanthum ovatum var. aristatum (Boiss.) Pérez Lara

and 5 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.