Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations
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 20 botanical countries
| Region | TDWG code | Continent |
|---|---|---|
| Argentina Northeast | AGE | SOUTHERN AMERICA |
| Argentina Northwest | AGW | |
| Argentina South | AGS | |
| Aruba | ARU | |
| Bolivia | BOL | |
| Colombia | CLM | |
| Netherlands Antilles | NLA | |
| Paraguay | PAR | |
| Peru | PER | |
| Uruguay | URU | |
| Venezuela | VEN | |
| Arizona | ARI | NORTHERN AMERICA |
| Colorado | COL | |
| Mexico Central | MXC | |
| Mexico Northeast | MXE | |
| Mexico Northwest | MXN | |
| Mexico Southwest | MXS | |
| New Mexico | NWM | |
| Oklahoma | OKL | |
| Texas | TEX |
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 400 observations
| Condition | 5th percentile | Median | 95th percentile |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coldest month, mean daily low | -1.5 °C | 2.4 °C | 8.6 °C |
| Warmest month, mean daily high | 29.9 °C | 34.2 °C | 37.1 °C |
| Annual rainfall | 269 mm | 418 mm | 806 mm |
| Rainfall in the driest quarter | 19 mm | 36 mm | 137 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 400 research-grade observations of Digitaria californica 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 Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.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 13 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.
- Digitaria californica var. californica
- Digitaria californica var. villosissima Henrard
- Eriachne rigida Phil.
- Panicum californicum Benth.
- Panicum friesii Hack. ex R.E.Fr.
- Panicum insulare var. lachnanthum Kuntze
- Panicum lachnanthum Torr.
- Panicum saccharatum Buckley
- Trichachne californica (Benth.) Chase ex Hitchc.
- Trichachne californica var. villosissima (Henrard) Wipff & Shaw
- Trichachne saccharata (Buckley) Nash
- Tricholaena saccharata (Buckley) Griseb.
- Valota saccharata (Buckley) Chase
Sourcesevery claim on this page
- World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
- iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
- Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
- 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.