Plate 1 figs. a–h · 7 observations
This species has been photographed under an open licence only 7 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.
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 10 botanical countries
| Region | TDWG code | Continent |
|---|---|---|
| Alabama | ALA | NORTHERN AMERICA |
| Florida | FLA | |
| Georgia | GEO | |
| Kentucky | KTY | |
| Louisiana | LOU | |
| Mississippi | MSI | |
| North Carolina | NCA | |
| South Carolina | SCA | |
| Texas | TEX | |
| Virginia | VRG |
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 36 observations
| Condition | 5th percentile | Median | 95th percentile |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coldest month, mean daily low | 1.5 °C | 6.7 °C | 9.6 °C |
| Warmest month, mean daily high | 29.7 °C | 31.0 °C | 32.6 °C |
| Annual rainfall | 1,239 mm | 1,605 mm | 1,841 mm |
| Rainfall in the driest quarter | 232 mm | 329 mm | 361 mm |
It is found where winters are cool but frost is light or absent. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 36 research-grade observations of Muhlenbergia expansa 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 Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.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 17 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.
- Agrostis arachnoidea Poir.
- Agrostis expansa Poir. ex Steud.
- Agrostis longiflora Willd. ex Steud.
- Agrostis rubicunda Bosc ex DC.
- Agrostis trichopodes Elliott
- Cinna arachnoidea (Poir.) Kunth
- Muhlenbergia arachnoidea Trin. ex Kunth
- Muhlenbergia arachnoides Trin. ex Steud.
- Muhlenbergia caespitosa Chapm.
- Muhlenbergia capillaris var. trichopodes (Elliott) Vasey
- Muhlenbergia trichopodes (Elliott) Chapm.
- Podosemum purpureum (P.Beauv.) P.Beauv.
- Podosemum trichopodes (Elliott) Bush
- Stipa expansa Poir.
- Trichochloa expansa (Poir.) DC.
- Trichochloa purpurea P.Beauv.
- Vilfa arachnoidea (Poir.) P.Beauv.
Sourcesevery claim on this page
- World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
- iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
- Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
- 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.