Aristida diffusaTrin.

WFO wfo-0000848732 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 7 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 7 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.

Aristida diffusa, photographed by Tony Rebelo
fig. a Tony Rebelo, CC BY-SA 4.0 / 2021-05-28 / obs. 137004362
Aristida diffusa, photographed by douglaseustonbrown
fig. b douglaseustonbrown, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 120178525
Aristida diffusa, photographed by Tony Rebelo
fig. c Tony Rebelo, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 19322672
Aristida diffusa, photographed by Tony Rebelo
fig. d Tony Rebelo, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 19151336
Aristida diffusa, photographed by douglaseustonbrown
fig. e douglaseustonbrown, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 120178512
Aristida diffusa, photographed by Manuel R Popp
fig. f Manuel R Popp, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 173990041
Aristida diffusa, photographed by Dave Richardson
fig. g Dave Richardson, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 119970682
Aristida diffusa, photographed by Tony Rebelo
fig. h Tony Rebelo, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 16028892

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 6 botanical countries

Regions where Aristida diffusa is native: Cape Provinces, Free State, KwaZulu-Natal, Lesotho, Northern Provinces, Zimbabwe Cape ProvincesFree StateKwaZulu-NatalLesothoNorthern ProvincesZimbabwe
Native distribution of Aristida diffusa, 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
Cape Provinces CPP AFRICA
Free State OFS
KwaZulu-Natal NAT
Lesotho LES
Northern Provinces TVL
Zimbabwe ZIM

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.

Also published as 16 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.

  • Aristida burkei Stapf
  • Aristida diffusa subsp. burkei (Stapf) Melderis
  • Aristida diffusa subsp. diffusa
  • Aristida diffusa var. brevistipitata (Trin. & Rupr.) Henrard
  • Aristida diffusa var. burkei (Stapf) Schweick.
  • Aristida diffusa var. densa (Trin. & Rupr.) Henrard
  • Aristida diffusa var. eckloniana (Trin. & Rupr.) Henrard
  • Aristida diffusa var. pseudohystrix (Trin. & Rupr.) Henrard
  • Aristida diffusa var. schraderiana (Trin. & Rupr.) Henrard
  • Aristida pseudohystrix (Trin. & Rupr.) Steud.
  • Aristida vestita var. brevistipitata Trin. & Rupr.
  • Aristida vestita var. densa Trin. & Rupr.
  • Aristida vestita var. diffusa (Trin.) Trin. & Rupr.
  • Aristida vestita var. eckloniana Trin. & Rupr.
  • Aristida vestita var. pseudohystrix Trin. & Rupr.
  • Aristida vestita var. schraderiana Trin. & Rupr.

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. 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.