Danthonia unispicata(Thurb.) Munro ex Macoun

onespike danthonia

WFO wfo-0000862191 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Danthonia unispicata, photographed by Hilary Rose Dawson
fig. a Hilary Rose Dawson, CC BY 4.0 / 2020-07-07 / obs. 83230578
Danthonia unispicata, photographed by mark-groeneveld
fig. b mark-groeneveld, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 81826276
Danthonia unispicata, photographed by Matt Lavin
fig. c Matt Lavin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 159001323
Danthonia unispicata, photographed by Matt Lavin
fig. d Matt Lavin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 159001306
Danthonia unispicata, photographed by Matt Lavin
fig. e Matt Lavin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 159001264
Danthonia unispicata, photographed by Cecelia Alexander
fig. f Cecelia Alexander, CC0 1.0 / obs. 205269963
Danthonia unispicata, photographed by Matt Berger
fig. g Matt Berger, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 148974347
Danthonia unispicata, photographed by Matt Berger
fig. h Matt Berger, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 143689513

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 13 botanical countries

Regions where Danthonia unispicata is native: Alberta, British Columbia, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Saskatchewan, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, Wyoming AlbertaBritish ColumbiaCaliforniaColoradoIdahoMontanaNevadaOregonSaskatchewanSouth DakotaUtahWashingtonWyoming
Native distribution of Danthonia unispicata, 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
Alberta ABT NORTHERN AMERICA
British Columbia BRC
California CAL
Colorado COL
Idaho IDA
Montana MNT
Nevada NEV
Oregon ORE
Saskatchewan SAS
South Dakota SDA
Utah UTA
Washington WAS
Wyoming WYO

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 302 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -14.1 °C -8.1 °C 0.5 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 21.7 °C 26.4 °C 32.5 °C
Annual rainfall 350 mm 666 mm 1,821 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 28 mm 53 mm 164 mm

It is found where winters bring hard 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 302 research-grade observations of Danthonia unispicata 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 3 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.

  • Danthonia californica var. unispicata Thurb.
  • Merathrepta unispicata (Thurb.) Piper
  • Pentameris unispicata (Thurb.) A.Nelson & J.F.Macbr.

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.