Tridens flavus(L.) Hitchc.

purpletop tridens

WFO wfo-0000904458 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h

Tridens flavus, photographed by saltyhiker
fig. a saltyhiker, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-02-13 / obs. 179314011
Tridens flavus, photographed by Sam Kieschnick
fig. b Sam Kieschnick, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 174461264
Tridens flavus, photographed by Thomas Koffel
fig. c Thomas Koffel, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 188633024
Tridens flavus, photographed by Thomas Koffel
fig. d Thomas Koffel, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 160591479
Tridens flavus, photographed by Taro Ietaka
fig. e Taro Ietaka, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 163469799
Tridens flavus, photographed by Clay
fig. f Clay, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 158156955
Tridens flavus, photographed by Thomas Koffel
fig. g Thomas Koffel, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 159088995
Tridens flavus, photographed by Clay
fig. h Clay, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 156499043

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.

Flowering n = 145 observations

Peak flowering in Sep, from 145 community-annotated observations worldwide. This is a global aggregate, not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres, and citizen-science records cluster near cities, at weekends, and in spring. Where a species has fewer than 30 annotated records we do not draw this chart at all.

Also published as 47 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.

  • Cynodon carolinianus (P.Beauv.) Raspail
  • Eragrostis arundinacea Jedwabn.
  • Eragrostis tricuspis Trin.
  • Festuca flava (L.) F.Muell.
  • Festuca purpurea Schreb. ex Steud.
  • Festuca quadridens Poir.
  • Panicum festucoides Poir.
  • Poa arundinacea Poir.
  • Poa caerulescens Michx. ex Kunth
  • Poa flava L.
  • Poa quinquefida Pursh
  • Poa seslerioides Michx.
  • Schedonorus quadridens (Poir.) Roem. & Schult.
  • Sieglingia cuprea (Jacq.) Millsp.
  • Sieglingia flava Kuntze
  • Sieglingia seslerioides Scribn.
  • Sieglingia seslerioides var. intermedia Vasey ex L.H.Dewey
  • Tricuspis caroliniana P.Beauv.
  • Tricuspis flava (L.) F.T.Hubb.
  • Tricuspis noveboracensis P.Beauv.
  • Tricuspis quinquefida Beauv. ex G.Don
  • Tricuspis seslerioides Torr.
  • Tricuspis seslerioides var. pallida Holm
  • Tricuspis sesleroides var. flexuosa Alph.Wood

and 23 more.

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.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice, no toxicity claim and no native range, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.