Digitaria violascensLink

violet crabgrass

WFO wfo-0000864520 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Digitaria violascens, photographed by Jacy Chen
fig. a Jacy Chen, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-01-23 / obs. 177016543

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.

The specimen a real sheet, in a real collection

Herbarium
The New York Botanical Garden
Accession
4317311
Filed as
Digitaria violascens Link
Det. by
K. Faccenda 2023-01-01
Collected
not recorded
Origin
not recorded
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC BY 4.0)

A real pressed plant, in a real collection, under the accession number above. Not an illustration of one. The holding institution does not serve this sheet’s image to third parties, so there is no photograph here. The record is real and the link goes to it. Where we hold no openly licensed sheet for a species this section is simply absent, and where a sheet never recorded who determined it, that field stays empty rather than being filled in. Roughly half of all herbarium sheets never recorded a determiner, which is ordinary.

Native range 42 botanical countries

Regions where Digitaria violascens is native: Afghanistan, China North-Central, China South-Central, China Southeast, Hainan, Japan, Kazan-retto, Korea, Nansei-shoto, Ogasawara-shoto, Qinghai, Taiwan, Tibet, Transcaucasus, Türkiye, Xinjiang, Andaman Is., Assam, Bangladesh, Borneo, Cambodia, East Himalaya, India, Jawa, Laos, Lesser Sunda Is., Malaya, Maluku, Myanmar, Nepal, New Guinea, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Sulawesi, Sumatera, Thailand, Vietnam, West Himalaya, New South Wales, Northern Territory, Queensland AfghanistanChina North-CentralChina South-CentralChina SoutheastHainanJapanQinghaiTaiwanTibetTranscaucasusTürkiyeXinjiangAssamBangladeshBorneoCambodiaEast HimalayaIndiaJawaLaosLesser Sunda Is.MalayaMalukuMyanmarNepalNew GuineaPakistanPhilippinesSri LankaSulawesiSumateraThailandVietnamWest HimalayaNew South WalesNorthern TerritoryQueensland KoreaNansei-shotoAndaman Is.
Native distribution of Digitaria violascens, 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
Andaman Is. AND ASIA-TROPICAL
Assam ASS
Bangladesh BAN
Borneo BOR
Cambodia CBD
East Himalaya EHM
India IND
Jawa JAW
Laos LAO
Lesser Sunda Is. LSI
Malaya MLY
Maluku MOL
Myanmar MYA
Nepal NEP
New Guinea NWG
Pakistan PAK
Philippines PHI
Sri Lanka SRL
Sulawesi SUL
Sumatera SUM
Thailand THA
Vietnam VIE
West Himalaya WHM
Afghanistan AFG ASIA-TEMPERATE
China North-Central CHN
China South-Central CHC
China Southeast CHS
Hainan CHH
Japan JAP
Kazan-retto KZN
Korea KOR
Nansei-shoto NNS
Ogasawara-shoto OGA
Qinghai CHQ
Taiwan TAI
Tibet CHT
Transcaucasus TCS
Türkiye TUR
Xinjiang CHX
New South Wales NSW AUSTRALASIA
Northern Territory NTA
Queensland QLD

Not drawn on the map: Kazan-retto, Ogasawara-shoto. We hold no public-domain boundary for these regions, so they are listed rather than guessed at.

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 216 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -1.2 °C 14.8 °C 22.0 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 23.2 °C 28.0 °C 33.0 °C
Annual rainfall 772 mm 1,834 mm 4,333 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 57 mm 178 mm 858 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 216 research-grade observations of Digitaria violascens 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 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.

  • Digitaria bogoriensis Ohwi
  • Digitaria caespitosa Ridl.
  • Digitaria chinensis (Nees) A.Camus
  • Digitaria digitata Buse
  • Digitaria fusca (J.Presl) Merr.
  • Digitaria ischaemum f. lasiophylla (Honda) Hiyama
  • Digitaria ischaemum var. asiatica Ohwi
  • Digitaria ischaemum var. intersita Ohwi
  • Digitaria ischaemum var. lasiophylla (Honda) Ohwi
  • Digitaria ischaemum var. violascens (Link) Radford
  • Digitaria pertenuis Buse
  • Digitaria pertenuis var. glabra (Boerl.) Ohwi
  • Digitaria pseudodurva Nees ex Schltdl.
  • Digitaria recta Hughes
  • Digitaria ropalotricha var. villosa (Keng) Tuyama
  • Digitaria thwaitesii var. tonkinensis Henrard
  • Digitaria violascens var. intersita (Ohwi) Ohwi
  • Digitaria violascens var. lasiophylla (Honda) Tuyama
  • Digitaria violascens var. villosa Keng
  • Panicum digitatum (Buse) Hook.f. ex Koord.
  • Panicum pertenue (Buse) Boerl.
  • Panicum pertenue var. glabrum Boerl.
  • Panicum pseudo-ischaemum var. elongatum Boerl.
  • Panicum pseudoduroa Nees

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.
  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.