Phalaris canariensis (annual canarygrass)

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Phalaris canariensis, photographed by Yves Bas — fig. a Yves Bas, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-04-21 / obs. 189601603

Phalaris canariensis, photographed by Eduardo Luis Beltrocco — fig. b Eduardo Luis Beltrocco, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 167179736

Phalaris canariensis, photographed by Piermario Maculan — fig. c Piermario Maculan, CC0 1.0 / obs. 150761191

Phalaris canariensis, photographed by Don Loarie — fig. d Don Loarie, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 132047663

Phalaris canariensis, photographed by David Whyte — fig. e David Whyte, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 57625320

Phalaris canariensis, photographed by Gilles San Martin — fig. g Gilles San Martin, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 36368169

Phalaris canariensis, photographed by Martin Scheuch — fig. h Martin Scheuch, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 138509523

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 2 botanical countries

Native distribution of Phalaris canariensis, 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.

Region	TDWG code	Continent
Canary Is.	CNY	AFRICA
Morocco	MOR

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 12 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.

Phalaris aquatica Delile ex Boiss.
Phalaris avicularis Salisb.
Phalaris canariensis f. bracteata Jansen & Wacht.
Phalaris canariensis f. colorata Jansen & Wacht.
Phalaris canariensis f. vivipara Junge
Phalaris canariensis subsp. typica Posp.
Phalaris canariensis var. debilis Tocl & Rohlena
Phalaris canariensis var. nigra Stokes
Phalaris canariensis var. subcylindrica Thell.
Phalaris canariensis var. tenuis Jansen & Wacht.
Phalaris canariensis var. villosula Jansen & Wacht.
Phalaris ovata Moench

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.