Eriocoma nelsonii(Scribn.) Romasch.

Columbia needlegrass

WFO wfo-1000032236 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 3 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 3 times, so some figures below are different views of the same plant, taken on the same day, rather than different individuals. They are usually different parts of it: the leaf, the flower, the bark.

Eriocoma nelsonii, photographed by Matt Lavin
fig. a Matt Lavin, CC BY 4.0 / 2009-08-09 / obs. 154441919
Eriocoma nelsonii, photographed by Cecelia Alexander
fig. b Cecelia Alexander, CC0 1.0 / obs. 76916355
Eriocoma nelsonii, photographed by Matt Lavin
fig. c Matt Lavin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 154441958
Eriocoma nelsonii, photographed by Matt Lavin
fig. d Matt Lavin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 154441918
Eriocoma nelsonii, photographed by Cecelia Alexander
fig. e Cecelia Alexander, CC0 1.0 / obs. 76916368
Eriocoma nelsonii, photographed by Matt Lavin
fig. f Matt Lavin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 154441925
Eriocoma nelsonii, photographed by Matt Lavin
fig. g Matt Lavin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 154441980
Eriocoma nelsonii, photographed by Matt Lavin
fig. h Matt Lavin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 154441964

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
Smithsonian, US National Herbarium
Accession
US 2874393
Filed as
Eriocoma nelsonii subsp. nelsonii
Det. by
Poaceae Reorganization Project
Collected
J. C. Beatley & T. Ackerman 1971-07-22
Origin
US
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC0 1.0)

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 17 botanical countries

Regions where Eriocoma nelsonii is native: Alberta, Arizona, British Columbia, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Saskatchewan, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington, Wyoming, Yukon AlbertaArizonaBritish ColumbiaCaliforniaColoradoIdahoMontanaNevadaNew MexicoOregonSaskatchewanSouth DakotaTexasUtahWashingtonWyomingYukon
Native distribution of Eriocoma nelsonii, 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
Arizona ARI
British Columbia BRC
California CAL
Colorado COL
Idaho IDA
Montana MNT
Nevada NEV
New Mexico NWM
Oregon ORE
Saskatchewan SAS
South Dakota SDA
Texas TEX
Utah UTA
Washington WAS
Wyoming WYO
Yukon YUK

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 61 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -17.6 °C -12.6 °C -6.6 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 19.3 °C 22.7 °C 27.5 °C
Annual rainfall 369 mm 539 mm 1,040 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 42 mm 78 mm 185 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 61 research-grade observations of Eriocoma nelsonii 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 9 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.

  • Achnatherum nelsonii (Scribn.) Barkworth
  • Achnatherum nelsonii subsp. dorei (Barkworth & J.R.Maze) Barkworth
  • Stipa columbiana subsp. nelsonii (Scribn.) H.St.John
  • Stipa columbiana var. nelsonii (Scribn.) Hitchc.
  • Stipa nelsonii Scribn.
  • Stipa nelsonii subsp. dorei Barkworth & J.R.Maze
  • Stipa nelsonii var. dorei (Barkworth & J.R.Maze) Dorn
  • Stipa occidentalis var. nelsonii (Scribn.) C.L.Hitchc.
  • Stipa williamsii Scribn.

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. USDA PLANTS Database. common name, checklist symbol ACNE9. public domain. 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.