Panicum turgidumForssk.

desert grass

WFO wfo-0000886725 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 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.

Panicum turgidum, photographed by Olivier Argagnon
fig. a Olivier Argagnon, CC BY 4.0 / 2019-03-30 / obs. 173878984

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
The New York Botanical Garden
Accession
4392997
Filed as
Panicum turgidum Forssk.
Det. by
not recorded on this sheet
Collected
F. W. Sieber
Origin
EG
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC BY 4.0)

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 33 botanical countries

Regions where Panicum turgidum is native: Algeria, Benin, Burkina, Chad, Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Senegal, Socotra, Somalia, Sudan-South Sudan, Tunisia, Western Sahara, Cyprus, Gulf States, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon-Syria, Oman, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Sinai, Yemen, India, Pakistan AlgeriaBeninBurkinaChadCongoDjiboutiEgyptEritreaEthiopiaLibyaMaliMauritaniaMoroccoNigerSenegalSomaliaSudan-South SudanTunisiaWestern SaharaCyprusGulf StatesIranIraqKuwaitLebanon-SyriaOmanPalestineSaudi ArabiaSinaiYemenIndiaPakistan
Native distribution of Panicum turgidum, 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
Algeria ALG AFRICA
Benin BEN
Burkina BKN
Chad CHA
Congo CON
Djibouti DJI
Egypt EGY
Eritrea ERI
Ethiopia ETH
Libya LBY
Mali MLI
Mauritania MTN
Morocco MOR
Niger NGR
Senegal SEN
Socotra SOC
Somalia SOM
Sudan-South Sudan SUD
Tunisia TUN
Western Sahara WSA
Cyprus CYP ASIA-TEMPERATE
Gulf States GST
Iran IRN
Iraq IRQ
Kuwait KUW
Lebanon-Syria LBS
Oman OMA
Palestine PAL
Saudi Arabia SAU
Sinai SIN
Yemen YEM
India IND ASIA-TROPICAL
Pakistan PAK

Not drawn on the map: Socotra. 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 60 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 3.7 °C 9.3 °C 18.6 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 29.7 °C 38.4 °C 43.4 °C
Annual rainfall 18 mm 85 mm 614 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 0 mm 3 mm 8 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 60 research-grade observations of Panicum turgidum 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 5 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.

  • Panicum frutescens Mez
  • Panicum minutiflorum Fig. & De Not.
  • Panicum neglectum Roem. & Schult.
  • Panicum notarisii Schweinf.
  • Panicum nubicum Fig. & De Not.

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.