Cenchrus ciliarisL.

buffelgrass

WFO wfo-0000858573 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h

Cenchrus ciliaris, photographed by Ricus Nel
fig. a Ricus Nel, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-11 / obs. 197070872
Cenchrus ciliaris, photographed by Tyler Bishop
fig. b Tyler Bishop, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 197986070
Cenchrus ciliaris, photographed by Tyler Bishop
fig. c Tyler Bishop, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 197987720
Cenchrus ciliaris, photographed by Francisco Farriols Sarabia
fig. d Francisco Farriols Sarabia, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 192007687
Cenchrus ciliaris, photographed by Casey H. Richart
fig. e Casey H. Richart, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 194513623
Cenchrus ciliaris, photographed by Casey H. Richart
fig. f Casey H. Richart, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 194513749
Cenchrus ciliaris, photographed by Sula Vanderplank
fig. g Sula Vanderplank, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 191483459
Cenchrus ciliaris, photographed by william_hoyer
fig. h william_hoyer, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 209064984

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.

Confused withby our own model

These are not lookalikes we guessed at. Each one is a species our identification model genuinely mistook for this plant, and how many times. The error rate is published.

Flowering n = 286 observations

Peak flowering in Mar, from 286 community-annotated observations worldwide. This is a global aggregate, not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres, and citizen-science records cluster near cities, at weekends, and in spring. Where a species has fewer than 30 annotated records we do not draw this chart at all.

Also published as 43 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.

  • Cenchrus anjania Buch.-Ham. ex Wall.
  • Cenchrus bulbosus Fresen. ex Steud.
  • Cenchrus bulbosus Fresen. ex Steud.
  • Cenchrus ciliaris f. intermedius (Chiov.) Chiov.
  • Cenchrus ciliaris subsp. ibrahimii Chrtek & Osb.-Kos.
  • Cenchrus ciliaris var. anachoreticus (Chiov.) Pirotta
  • Cenchrus ciliaris var. leptostachys (Leeke) Maire & Weiller
  • Cenchrus ciliaris var. longisetosus Kuntze
  • Cenchrus ciliaris var. nubicus Fig. & De Not.
  • Cenchrus ciliaris var. pallens (Leeke) Maire & Weiller
  • Cenchrus ciliaris var. robustior Penz.
  • Cenchrus ciliaris var. villifer Fig. & De Not.
  • Cenchrus ciliaris var. villiferus Fig. & De Not
  • Cenchrus glaucus C.R.Mudaliar & Sundararaj
  • Cenchrus longifolius Hochst. ex Steud.
  • Cenchrus melanostachyus A.Camus
  • Cenchrus mutabilis Wight ex Hook.f.
  • Cenchrus pennisetiformis var. intermedius Chiov.
  • Cenchrus rufescens Desf.
  • Pennisetum cenchroides Rich.
  • Pennisetum cenchroides var. echioides Hook.f.
  • Pennisetum cenchroides var. hamphilahense N.Terracc.
  • Pennisetum ciliare (L.) Link
  • Pennisetum ciliare f. brachystachys Peter

and 19 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.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice, no toxicity claim and no native range, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.