Festuca ambiguaLe Gall

fringed fescue

WFO wfo-0000869737 Accepted WFO 2026-06 3 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–c · 2 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 2 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.

Festuca ambigua, photographed by Christian Berg
fig. a Christian Berg, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-10 / obs. 198317989
Festuca ambigua, photographed by Christian Berg
fig. b Christian Berg, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 198318039
Festuca ambigua, photographed by Robert H. Wardell
fig. c Robert H. Wardell, CC0 1.0 / obs. 21910785

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 38 botanical countries

Regions where Festuca ambigua is native: Algeria, Canary Is., Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, Afghanistan, Cyprus, East Aegean Is., Iran, Iraq, Kirgizstan, Lebanon-Syria, North Caucasus, Palestine, Tadzhikistan, Transcaucasus, Türkiye, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, West Himalaya, Albania, Baleares, Bulgaria, Corse, France, Great Britain, Greece, Italy, Kriti, Krym, NW. Balkan Pen., Portugal, Romania, Sardegna, Sicilia, Spain, Türkiye-in-Europe AlgeriaLibyaMoroccoTunisiaAfghanistanCyprusEast Aegean Is.IranIraqKirgizstanLebanon-SyriaNorth CaucasusPalestineTadzhikistanTranscaucasusTürkiyeTurkmenistanUzbekistanPakistanWest HimalayaAlbaniaBulgariaCorseFranceGreeceItalyKritiKrymNW. Balkan Pen.PortugalRomaniaSiciliaSpainTürkiye-in-Europe Canary Is.BalearesSardegna
Native distribution of Festuca ambigua, 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
Albania ALB EUROPE
Baleares BAL
Bulgaria BUL
Corse COR
France FRA
Great Britain GRB
Greece GRC
Italy ITA
Kriti KRI
Krym KRY
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Portugal POR
Romania ROM
Sardegna SAR
Sicilia SIC
Spain SPA
Türkiye-in-Europe TUE
Afghanistan AFG ASIA-TEMPERATE
Cyprus CYP
East Aegean Is. EAI
Iran IRN
Iraq IRQ
Kirgizstan KGZ
Lebanon-Syria LBS
North Caucasus NCS
Palestine PAL
Tadzhikistan TZK
Transcaucasus TCS
Türkiye TUR
Turkmenistan TKM
Uzbekistan UZB
Algeria ALG AFRICA
Canary Is. CNY
Libya LBY
Morocco MOR
Tunisia TUN
Pakistan PAK ASIA-TROPICAL
West Himalaya WHM

Not drawn on the map: Great Britain. We hold no public-domain boundary for this region, so it is 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 144 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -2.9 °C 0.6 °C 9.2 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 21.7 °C 25.7 °C 32.1 °C
Annual rainfall 427 mm 773 mm 1,631 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 21 mm 137 mm 186 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 144 research-grade observations of Festuca ambigua 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 41 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.

  • Distomomischus ciliatus (Dumort.) Dulac
  • Festuca aetnensis (Tineo) Walp.
  • Festuca ambigua var. imberbis (Vis.) Breistr.
  • Festuca ambigua var. penicillata (Murb.) Breistr.
  • Festuca ambigua var. tripolitana (Pamp.) Breistr.
  • Festuca barbata var. danthonii (Asch. & Graebn.) Hack. & Briq.
  • Festuca barbata var. imberbis (Vis.) Hack. & Briq.
  • Festuca ciliata var. aetnensis (Tineo) Nyman
  • Festuca ciliata var. elongata Guss.
  • Festuca ciliata var. glabra (F.Towns.) Tourlet
  • Festuca ciliata var. glabrescens Döll
  • Festuca ciliata var. imberbis Vis.
  • Festuca danthonii Asch. & Graebn.
  • Festuca danthonii var. ambigua (Le Gall) Asch. & Graebn.
  • Festuca danthonii var. imberbis (Vis.) Asch. & Graebn.
  • Festuca danthonii var. penicillata Murb.
  • Festuca exigua Litv.
  • Festuca gaudiniana Guss.
  • Festuca myuros subsp. ambigua (Le Gall) Syme
  • Festuca myuros var. ciliata (Dumort.) Chaub.
  • Vulpia aetnensis Tineo
  • Vulpia aetnensis var. imberbis (Vis.) Henrard
  • Vulpia ambigua (Le Gall) More
  • Vulpia ciliata Dumort.

and 17 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. USDA PLANTS Database. common name, checklist symbol VUCI. 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.