Plantago eriopodaTorr.

redwool plantain

WFO wfo-0000486830 Accepted WFO 2026-06 7 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–g · 4 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 4 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.

Plantago eriopoda, photographed by Syd Cannings
fig. a Syd Cannings, CC BY 4.0 / 2020-06-10 / obs. 78086829
Plantago eriopoda, photographed by Syd Cannings
fig. b Syd Cannings, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 77131907
Plantago eriopoda, photographed by Syd Cannings
fig. c Syd Cannings, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 78086852
Plantago eriopoda, photographed by Syd Cannings
fig. d Syd Cannings, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 78086866
Plantago eriopoda, photographed by Syd Cannings
fig. e Syd Cannings, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 82099529
Plantago eriopoda, photographed by Syd Cannings
fig. f Syd Cannings, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 82099552
Plantago eriopoda, photographed by James Stevens
fig. g James Stevens, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 179775242

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
4161352
Filed as
Plantago eriopoda Torr.
Det. by
not recorded on this sheet
Collected
R. R. Halse 2018-06-01
Origin
US
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 24 botanical countries

Regions where Plantago eriopoda is native: Alaska, Alberta, Arizona, British Columbia, California, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Manitoba, Mexico Northeast, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Northwest Territories, Oregon, Québec, Saskatchewan, South Dakota, Utah, Wyoming, Yukon AlaskaAlbertaArizonaBritish ColumbiaCaliforniaColoradoIdahoIowaManitobaMexico NortheastMinnesotaMontanaNebraskaNevadaNew MexicoNorth DakotaNorthwest TerritoriesOregonQuébecSaskatchewanSouth DakotaUtahWyomingYukon
Native distribution of Plantago eriopoda, 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
Alaska ASK NORTHERN AMERICA
Alberta ABT
Arizona ARI
British Columbia BRC
California CAL
Colorado COL
Idaho IDA
Iowa IOW
Manitoba MAN
Mexico Northeast MXE
Minnesota MIN
Montana MNT
Nebraska NEB
Nevada NEV
New Mexico NWM
North Dakota NDA
Northwest Territories NWT
Oregon ORE
Québec QUE
Saskatchewan SAS
South Dakota SDA
Utah UTA
Wyoming WYO
Yukon YUK

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 701 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -20.8 °C -13.9 °C -11.3 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 19.5 °C 25.0 °C 26.8 °C
Annual rainfall 306 mm 330 mm 493 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 27 mm 29 mm 63 mm

It is found where winters are severely cold. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 701 research-grade observations of Plantago eriopoda 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 11 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.

  • Plantago attenuata E.James
  • Plantago cucullata Pursh
  • Plantago eriopoda f. angustior Pilg.
  • Plantago eriopoda f. latior Pilg.
  • Plantago eriopoda f. maxima Pilg.
  • Plantago glabra Nutt.
  • Plantago lanceolata var. latifolia Hook.
  • Plantago oblongifolia Decne.
  • Plantago retrorsa Greene
  • Plantago shastensis Greene
  • Plantago virescens Barnéoud

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.