Bouteloua chondrosioides(Kunth) Benth. ex S.Watson

sprucetop grama

WFO wfo-0000853885 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Bouteloua chondrosioides, photographed by Andrew Tree
fig. a Andrew Tree, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-09-03 / obs. 155026262
Bouteloua chondrosioides, photographed by Sue Carnahan
fig. b Sue Carnahan, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 154558642
Bouteloua chondrosioides, photographed by Sam Kieschnick
fig. c Sam Kieschnick, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 10659788
Bouteloua chondrosioides, photographed by Sam Kieschnick
fig. d Sam Kieschnick, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 10660075
Bouteloua chondrosioides, photographed by Carlos Martorell
fig. e Carlos Martorell, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 9613337
Bouteloua chondrosioides, photographed by Sam Kieschnick
fig. f Sam Kieschnick, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 11035670
Bouteloua chondrosioides, photographed by Daniel McNair
fig. g Daniel McNair, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 157471827
Bouteloua chondrosioides, photographed by Rosario Douglas
fig. h Rosario Douglas, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 160190084

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 12 botanical countries

Regions where Bouteloua chondrosioides is native: Arizona, Mexico Central, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Northwest, Mexico Southeast, Mexico Southwest, Texas, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua ArizonaMexico CentralMexico NortheastMexico NorthwestMexico SoutheastMexico SouthwestTexasCosta RicaEl SalvadorGuatemalaHondurasNicaragua
Native distribution of Bouteloua chondrosioides, 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
Arizona ARI NORTHERN AMERICA
Mexico Central MXC
Mexico Northeast MXE
Mexico Northwest MXN
Mexico Southeast MXT
Mexico Southwest MXS
Texas TEX
Costa Rica COS SOUTHERN AMERICA
El Salvador ELS
Guatemala GUA
Honduras HON
Nicaragua NIC

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 157 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -1.1 °C 2.1 °C 6.6 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 26.3 °C 31.5 °C 34.7 °C
Annual rainfall 391 mm 477 mm 631 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 18 mm 34 mm 45 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 157 research-grade observations of Bouteloua chondrosioides 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 10 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.

  • Actinochloa ovata (Lag.) Roem. & Schult.
  • Atheropogon chondrosiodes (Kunth) Roem. & Schult.
  • Atheropogon chondrosioides (Kunth) Roem. & Schult.
  • Bouteloua havardii Vasey ex S.Watson
  • Bouteloua ovata Lag.
  • Chondrosum humboldtianum Kunth
  • Dinebra chondrosioides Kunth
  • Erucaria villosa Cerv.
  • Eutriana cristata Trin.
  • Spartina humilis Link

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.