Eragrostis tenuifolia(A.Rich.) Hochst. ex Steud.

elastic grass

WFO wfo-0000868522 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Eragrostis tenuifolia, photographed by Kevin Faccenda
fig. a Kevin Faccenda, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-03 / obs. 204058683

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
4314596
Filed as
Eragrostis tenuifolia (A.Rich.) Hochst. ex Steud.
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 37 botanical countries

Regions where Eragrostis tenuifolia is native: Angola, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Provinces, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Djibouti, DR Congo, Eritrea, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Free State, Kenya, KwaZulu-Natal, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Northern Provinces, Réunion, Rwanda, Sudan-South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Oman, Yemen, Assam, Bangladesh, East Himalaya, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam AngolaBurundiCameroonCape ProvincesCentral African RepublicChadCongoDjiboutiDR CongoEritreaEswatiniEthiopiaFree StateKenyaKwaZulu-NatalMadagascarMalawiMozambiqueNigeriaNorthern ProvincesRwandaSudan-South SudanTanzaniaUgandaZambiaZimbabweOmanYemenAssamBangladeshEast HimalayaIndiaMyanmarSri LankaThailandVietnam Réunion
Native distribution of Eragrostis tenuifolia, 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
Angola ANG AFRICA
Burundi BUR
Cameroon CMN
Cape Provinces CPP
Central African Republic CAF
Chad CHA
Congo CON
Djibouti DJI
DR Congo ZAI
Eritrea ERI
Eswatini SWZ
Ethiopia ETH
Free State OFS
Kenya KEN
KwaZulu-Natal NAT
Madagascar MDG
Malawi MLW
Mozambique MOZ
Nigeria NGA
Northern Provinces TVL
Réunion REU
Rwanda RWA
Sudan-South Sudan SUD
Tanzania TAN
Uganda UGA
Zambia ZAM
Zimbabwe ZIM
Assam ASS ASIA-TROPICAL
Bangladesh BAN
East Himalaya EHM
India IND
Myanmar MYA
Sri Lanka SRL
Thailand THA
Vietnam VIE
Oman OMA ASIA-TEMPERATE
Yemen YEM

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 956 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 7.6 °C 18.7 °C 21.5 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 21.3 °C 26.4 °C 30.0 °C
Annual rainfall 722 mm 1,181 mm 3,909 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 54 mm 166 mm 641 mm

It is barely found anywhere that freezes. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 956 research-grade observations of Eragrostis tenuifolia 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.

  • Eragrostis parviglumis Hochst. ex Steud.
  • Eragrostis tenuifolia var. polytricha Peter
  • Poa tenuifolia A.Rich.

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.