Aristida lanosaMuhl. ex Elliott

woollysheath threeawn

WFO wfo-0001095905 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 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.

Aristida lanosa, photographed by Sam Kieschnick
fig. a Sam Kieschnick, CC BY 4.0 / 2017-11-29 / obs. 12128002
Aristida lanosa, photographed by Sam Kieschnick
fig. b Sam Kieschnick, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 14120266
Aristida lanosa, photographed by Sam Kieschnick
fig. c Sam Kieschnick, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 5908216
Aristida lanosa, photographed by Sam Kieschnick
fig. d Sam Kieschnick, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 5908217
Aristida lanosa, photographed by Sam Kieschnick
fig. e Sam Kieschnick, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 14120267
Aristida lanosa, photographed by Sam Kieschnick
fig. f Sam Kieschnick, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 12128006
Aristida lanosa, photographed by John Kees
fig. g John Kees, CC0 1.0 / obs. 165019872
Aristida lanosa, photographed by Sam Kieschnick
fig. h Sam Kieschnick, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 54084734

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 18 botanical countries

Regions where Aristida lanosa is native: Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia AlabamaArkansasFloridaGeorgiaIllinoisLouisianaMarylandMississippiMissouriNew JerseyNorth CarolinaOklahomaSouth CarolinaTennesseeTexasVirginiaWest Virginia Delaware
Native distribution of Aristida lanosa, 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
Alabama ALA NORTHERN AMERICA
Arkansas ARK
Delaware DEL
Florida FLA
Georgia GEO
Illinois ILL
Louisiana LOU
Maryland MRY
Mississippi MSI
Missouri MSO
New Jersey NWJ
North Carolina NCA
Oklahoma OKL
South Carolina SCA
Tennessee TEN
Texas TEX
Virginia VRG
West Virginia WVA

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 7 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 gossypina Bosc ex Roem. & Schult.
  • Aristida lanata Poir.
  • Aristida lanosa var. lanosa
  • Aristida lanosa var. macera Fernald & Griscom
  • Aristida lanuginosa Bosc ex Trin.
  • Chaetaria gossypina Roem. & Schult.
  • Moulinsia lanosa Raf.

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 ARLA6. 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.