Festuca variaHaenke

WFO wfo-0000872478 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 5 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 5 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 varia, photographed by Dmitriy Bochkov
fig. a Dmitriy Bochkov, CC BY 4.0 / 2019-07-18 / obs. 48750076
Festuca varia, photographed by Christian Berg
fig. b Christian Berg, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 81835875
Festuca varia, photographed by Christian Berg
fig. c Christian Berg, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 77830210
Festuca varia, photographed by Dmitriy Bochkov
fig. d Dmitriy Bochkov, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 31534393
Festuca varia, photographed by Dmitriy Bochkov
fig. e Dmitriy Bochkov, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 48750080
Festuca varia, photographed by Christian Berg
fig. f Christian Berg, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 81835755
Festuca varia, photographed by Christian Berg
fig. g Christian Berg, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 77829686
Festuca varia, photographed by Dmitriy Bochkov
fig. h Dmitriy Bochkov, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 48594705

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 11 botanical countries

Regions where Festuca varia is native: North Caucasus, Transcaucasus, Türkiye, Albania, Austria, Czechia-Slovakia, Italy, NW. Balkan Pen., Poland, Romania, Ukraine North CaucasusTranscaucasusTürkiyeAlbaniaAustriaCzechia-SlovakiaItalyNW. Balkan Pen.PolandRomaniaUkraine
Native distribution of Festuca varia, 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
Albania ALB EUROPE
Austria AUT
Czechia-Slovakia CZE
Italy ITA
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Poland POL
Romania ROM
Ukraine UKR
North Caucasus NCS ASIA-TEMPERATE
Transcaucasus TCS
Türkiye TUR

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.

Also published as 30 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.

  • Avena varia Raspail
  • Festuca alpina Host
  • Festuca bellardii Schott ex Steud.
  • Festuca brachystachys (Hack.) K.Richt.
  • Festuca brachystachys var. pallidula (Hack.) Richt.
  • Festuca karabaghensis Mussajev
  • Festuca lagascae Steud.
  • Festuca laxa Schleich. ex Steud.
  • Festuca lubrica Lapeyr.
  • Festuca picta J.F.Gmel.
  • Festuca pumila subsp. varia (Haenke) Litard.
  • Festuca spadicea Geners.
  • Festuca spadicea Geners. ex Roem. & Schult.
  • Festuca sudetica Tausch ex Steud.
  • Festuca varia subsp. brachystachys (Hack.) Hegi
  • Festuca varia subsp. woronowii (Hack.) Tzvelev
  • Festuca varia subvar. pallidula Hack.
  • Festuca varia var. brachystachys Hack.
  • Festuca varia var. caucasica St.-Yves
  • Festuca varia var. croatica Hack.
  • Festuca varia var. firmior Belli & Hack.
  • Festuca varia var. woronowii (Hack.) St.-Yves
  • Festuca versicolor subsp. brachystachys (Hack.) Markgr.-Dann.
  • Festuca versicolor subsp. pallidula (Hack.) Markgr.-Dann.

and 6 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. 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.