Eriochloa villosa(Thunb.) Kunth

hairy cupgrass

WFO wfo-0000869153 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Eriochloa villosa, photographed by Jacob Friend
fig. a Jacob Friend, CC0 1.0 / 2021-09-08 / obs. 156689936
Eriochloa villosa, photographed by Jeff D Hansen
fig. b Jeff D Hansen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 155522880
Eriochloa villosa, photographed by Jeff D Hansen
fig. c Jeff D Hansen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 155253219
Eriochloa villosa, photographed by Jeff D Hansen
fig. d Jeff D Hansen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 154990836
Eriochloa villosa, photographed by Eug 302
fig. e Eug 302, CC0 1.0 / obs. 93185714
Eriochloa villosa, photographed by Ethan Rose
fig. f Ethan Rose, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 88435016
Eriochloa villosa, photographed by Jacy Chen
fig. g Jacy Chen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 75307707
Eriochloa villosa, photographed by Mike B
fig. h Mike B, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 22643926

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 Eriochloa villosa is native: Amur, China North-Central, China South-Central, China Southeast, Inner Mongolia, Japan, Khabarovsk, Korea, Manchuria, Nansei-shoto, Primorye, Taiwan, Vietnam AmurChina North-CentralChina South-CentralChina SoutheastInner MongoliaJapanKhabarovskManchuriaPrimoryeTaiwanVietnam KoreaNansei-shoto
Native distribution of Eriochloa villosa, 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
Amur AMU ASIA-TEMPERATE
China North-Central CHN
China South-Central CHC
China Southeast CHS
Inner Mongolia CHI
Japan JAP
Khabarovsk KHA
Korea KOR
Manchuria CHM
Nansei-shoto NNS
Primorye PRM
Taiwan TAI
Vietnam VIE ASIA-TROPICAL

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 510 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -20.1 °C -10.9 °C 6.8 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 24.2 °C 27.7 °C 29.7 °C
Annual rainfall 618 mm 874 mm 1,613 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 41 mm 88 mm 165 mm

It is found where winters are severely cold. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 510 research-grade observations of Eriochloa villosa 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 7 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.

  • Eriochloa villosa f. depauperata Roshev.
  • Eriochloa villosa f. distachya Hack.
  • Eriochloa villosa var. stenantha Ohwi
  • Helopus villosus Nees ex Steud.
  • Panicum tuberculiflorum Steud.
  • Paspalum distichum Houtt.
  • Paspalum villosum Thunb.

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.