Urochloa serrata(Thunb.) Sosef

WFO wfo-0001347506 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Urochloa serrata, photographed by douglaseustonbrown
fig. a douglaseustonbrown, CC BY-SA 4.0 / 2020-01-31 / obs. 62018924
Urochloa serrata, photographed by Tony Rebelo
fig. b Tony Rebelo, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 59063060
Urochloa serrata, photographed by Henry de Lange
fig. c Henry de Lange, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 86342742
Urochloa serrata, photographed by Henry de Lange
fig. d Henry de Lange, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 75150603
Urochloa serrata, photographed by Shaun Swanepoel
fig. e Shaun Swanepoel, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 33666011
Urochloa serrata, photographed by Andrew Hankey
fig. f Andrew Hankey, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 15125440
Urochloa serrata, photographed by Manuel R Popp
fig. g Manuel R Popp, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 175510915
Urochloa serrata, photographed by Manuel R Popp
fig. h Manuel R Popp, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 174245041

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 1090740
Filed as
Urochloa serrata (Thunb.) Sosef
Det. by
not recorded on this sheet
Collected
H. Shantz 1919-12-01
Origin
ZW
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 30 botanical countries

Regions where Urochloa serrata is native: Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina, Cameroon, Cape Provinces, Central African Republic, Chad, DR Congo, Eritrea, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Free State, Ivory Coast, Kenya, KwaZulu-Natal, Lesotho, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Northern Provinces, Somalia, Sudan-South Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe AngolaBeninBotswanaBurkinaCameroonCape ProvincesCentral African RepublicChadDR CongoEritreaEswatiniEthiopiaFree StateIvory CoastKenyaKwaZulu-NatalLesothoMalawiMaliMozambiqueNamibiaNigeriaNorthern ProvincesSomaliaSudan-South SudanTanzaniaTogoUgandaZambiaZimbabwe
Native distribution of Urochloa serrata, 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
Angola ANG AFRICA
Benin BEN
Botswana BOT
Burkina BKN
Cameroon CMN
Cape Provinces CPP
Central African Republic CAF
Chad CHA
DR Congo ZAI
Eritrea ERI
Eswatini SWZ
Ethiopia ETH
Free State OFS
Ivory Coast IVO
Kenya KEN
KwaZulu-Natal NAT
Lesotho LES
Malawi MLW
Mali MLI
Mozambique MOZ
Namibia NAM
Nigeria NGA
Northern Provinces TVL
Somalia SOM
Sudan-South Sudan SUD
Tanzania TAN
Togo TOG
Uganda UGA
Zambia ZAM
Zimbabwe ZIM

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 238 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 1.0 °C 4.1 °C 10.1 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 23.2 °C 26.2 °C 29.4 °C
Annual rainfall 492 mm 676 mm 1,020 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 15 mm 33 mm 128 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 238 research-grade observations of Urochloa serrata 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 18 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.

  • Brachiaria andongensis (Rendle) Stapf
  • Brachiaria brachylopha Stapf
  • Brachiaria serrata (Thunb.) Stapf
  • Brachiaria serrata var. gossypina (T.Durand & Schinz) Stapf
  • Eriochloa purpurascens Hochst. ex A.Rich.
  • Eriochloa purpurascens Hochst.
  • Holcus serratus Thunb.
  • Panicum andongense Rendle
  • Panicum brachylophum (Stapf) A.Chev.
  • Panicum gossypinum A.Rich.
  • Panicum nigropedatum var. basipiliferum Chiov.
  • Panicum scopuliferum Trin.
  • Panicum serratum var. brachylophum (Stapf) A.Chev.
  • Panicum serratum var. gossypinum T.Durand & Schinz
  • Panicum serratum var. hirtum Kuntze
  • Panicum serratum var. holosericeum T.Durand & Schinz
  • Sorghum serratum (Thunb.) Roem. & Schult.
  • Tricholaena abbreviata K.Schum.

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. 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.