Oplismenus undulatifoliusRoem. & Schult.

Wavyleaf basketgrass

WFO wfo-0000882190 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Oplismenus undulatifolius, photographed by Emily Summerbell
fig. a Emily Summerbell, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-30 / obs. 203424284

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 3279601
Filed as
Oplismenus undulatifolius (Ard.) P.Beauv.
Det. by
Poaceae Reorganization Project
Collected
W. L. Wagner, S. W. Miller, D. Wier & G. Wier 1983-08-27
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 50 botanical countries

Regions where Oplismenus undulatifolius is native: Botswana, Cameroon, Cape Provinces, DR Congo, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Kenya, KwaZulu-Natal, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Northern Provinces, Réunion, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, China North-Central, China South-Central, China Southeast, Iran, Japan, Korea, Nansei-shoto, North Caucasus, Taiwan, Transcaucasus, Türkiye, Assam, Bangladesh, East Himalaya, India, Jawa, Lesser Sunda Is., Maluku, Myanmar, Nepal, New Guinea, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Sulawesi, Thailand, West Himalaya, New South Wales, Queensland, Italy, NW. Balkan Pen., Spain, Switzerland BotswanaCameroonCape ProvincesDR CongoEswatiniEthiopiaKenyaKwaZulu-NatalMadagascarMalawiMozambiqueNorthern ProvincesTanzaniaZambiaZimbabweChina North-CentralChina South-CentralChina SoutheastIranJapanNorth CaucasusTaiwanTranscaucasusTürkiyeAssamBangladeshEast HimalayaIndiaJawaLesser Sunda Is.MalukuMyanmarNepalNew GuineaPakistanPhilippinesSri LankaSulawesiThailandWest HimalayaNew South WalesQueenslandItalyNW. Balkan Pen.SpainSwitzerland MauritiusRéunionKoreaNansei-shoto
Native distribution of Oplismenus undulatifolius, 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
Botswana BOT AFRICA
Cameroon CMN
Cape Provinces CPP
DR Congo ZAI
Eswatini SWZ
Ethiopia ETH
Kenya KEN
KwaZulu-Natal NAT
Madagascar MDG
Malawi MLW
Mauritius MAU
Mozambique MOZ
Northern Provinces TVL
Réunion REU
Tanzania TAN
Zambia ZAM
Zimbabwe ZIM
Assam ASS ASIA-TROPICAL
Bangladesh BAN
East Himalaya EHM
India IND
Jawa JAW
Lesser Sunda Is. LSI
Maluku MOL
Myanmar MYA
Nepal NEP
New Guinea NWG
Pakistan PAK
Philippines PHI
Sri Lanka SRL
Sulawesi SUL
Thailand THA
West Himalaya WHM
China North-Central CHN ASIA-TEMPERATE
China South-Central CHC
China Southeast CHS
Iran IRN
Japan JAP
Korea KOR
Nansei-shoto NNS
North Caucasus NCS
Taiwan TAI
Transcaucasus TCS
Türkiye TUR
Italy ITA EUROPE
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Spain SPA
Switzerland SWI
New South Wales NSW AUSTRALASIA
Queensland QLD

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.

Flowering 77 in flower of 530 examined

Proportion of examined Oplismenus undulatifolius in flower, by month
Month In flower Examined Share 95% interval
Jan 0 3 too few examined
Feb 0 23 0% 0% to 14%
Mar 0 7 0% 0% to 35%
Apr 1 26 4% 1% to 19%
May 0 65 0% 0% to 6%
Jun 6 113 5% 2% to 11%
Jul 6 72 8% 4% to 17%
Aug 22 63 35% 24% to 47%
Sep 22 66 33% 23% to 45%
Oct 17 67 25% 16% to 37%
Nov 3 23 13% 5% to 32%
Dec 0 2 too few examined

Peak flowering in Aug. Each bar is the share of Oplismenus undulatifolius observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 77 of 530 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 2 months have fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for them. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Where it actually grows measured, from 1,988 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -5.0 °C -2.7 °C 3.5 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 25.6 °C 30.1 °C 31.0 °C
Annual rainfall 980 mm 1,130 mm 2,316 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 100 mm 235 mm 418 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 1,988 research-grade observations of Oplismenus undulatifolius 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. Climate from CHELSA V2.1 (Karger et al. 2017); occurrences from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 20 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.

  • Hippagrostis undulatifolia (Ard.) Kuntze
  • Oplismenus africanus var. capensis (Hochst.) Stapf
  • Oplismenus africanus var. simplex Stapf
  • Oplismenus capensis Hochst.
  • Oplismenus hirtellus subsp. undulatifolius (Ard.) U.Scholz
  • Oplismenus mollis (Domin) Clifford & G.P.Evans ex B.K.Simon
  • Oplismenus simplex K.Schum.
  • Oplismenus undulatifolius f. elongatus (Honda) Y.N.Lee
  • Oplismenus undulatifolius var. binatus S.L.Chen & Y.X.Jin
  • Oplismenus undulatifolius var. elongatus Honda
  • Oplismenus undulatifolius var. glaber S.L.Chen & Y.X.Jin
  • Oplismenus undulatifolius var. mollis Domin
  • Oplismenus undulatifolius var. undulatifolius
  • Orthopogon bolosii Vayr.
  • Orthopogon undulatifolius (Ard.) Spreng.
  • Orthopogon undulatus Link
  • Paniculum undulatifolium Ard.
  • Panicum burmannii Balb.
  • Panicum kraussii Steud.
  • Panicum undulatifolium Ard.

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.