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Splitbeard bluestem

Andropogon ternarius · Poaceae · all Andropogon records · syn. Anatherum ternarium

Your local evidence lens

Separate evidence questions, never one approval badge

Set a ZIP to compare this record with state distribution, native range, USDA hardiness, and invasive records.

A genus split is not a placement verdict. Set a ZIP to read the local documented split.

1. Fire evidence and conditions

Fire evidence: Highly flammable — location does not change the cited classification.
Fire-performance conditions: No test or rating condition is normalized.
Fire ecology context: No section-reviewed fire-ecology context is normalized.
Placement evidence: 1 source placement record; source schemes remain separate.
Evidence regions: Global; NC; North Carolina; North Carolina / southeastern US
Maintenance: No sourced horticultural maintenance assertion is normalized; fire-test conditions do not supply maintenance advice.

Typed publication scope: 1 scope across 1 cited fire source

Fire-Resistant Landscaping in North Carolina (AG-874) · Official scoped edition
- NC; complete normalized coverage · 2025-03-26
  The complete three-table AG-874 plant list is explicitly for North Carolina and contains 202 low-, medium-, or high-flammability rows. FireApproved accounts for all source rows under its strict taxonomy and lineage rules; source scope does not establish local suitability at a particular North Carolina site.

2. Why this plant is relevant here

State distribution: Documented in AL, AR, DC, DE, FL, GA, IL, IN, KS, KY, LA, MD, MO, MS, NC, NJ, OK, SC, TN, TX, VA.
Native range: The legacy compatibility field lists NC in native range; its field-level source was not retained.
Introduced / established: No introduced or established row is normalized; that does not prove native status.
USDA hardiness: Documented minimum 5a; no upper limit is documented.

3. Legal, ecological, and broader status

Legal-list status: Set a location for an exact legal-list result; source silence is not clearance.
Seed-list status: Set a location to compare the separate state noxious-weed seed layer.
Reported invasive here: No ecological invasive report is normalized; that does not prove noninvasiveness.
Broader regional context: Aggregate AK, HI, and L48 evidence is shown only as regional context, never as an exact-state finding.
Federal context: Federal designations remain separate from state legal-list results.

How to read this page

The status above is computed from the cited rows below: independent recommendations can support a fire-resistant result, an avoid row can produce keep-away, and disagreement stays visible as conflict. Placement notes preserve each source’s own scheme rather than translating unlike rules into one scale. This is evidence about a plant, not permission to plant it in every part of the defensible space; Zone 0 remains noncombustible.

Splitbeard bluestem (Andropogon ternarius) — Photo: (c) Douglas Goldman, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) (CC BY-SA), via iNaturalist. Species-typical, not necessarily this cultivar.

Form: grass
USDA hardiness: Minimum 5a; upper limit not documented
Mature height: ~3.9 ft
Water need: low
Legacy native field: NC · field-level source not retained
Grows in: AL, AR, DC, DE, FL, GA, IL, IN +13
Rated in: Global; NC; North Carolina; North Carolina / southeastern US
Family: Poaceae
Evidence: 11 cited sources

Plant hardiness evidence

These values describe the plant source. Your ZIP zone comes from the separate 2023 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map. Whole-zone values stay whole-zone, and a single unresolved value is not treated as a tolerance range. Different source boundaries stay separate: overlapping statements are compared independently, while only ranges with no shared zone are called a conflict.

USDA PLANTS Database — Plant Characteristics · record ANTE2 · PLANTS Help Document 2022; characteristics cache retrieved 2026-08-23 · as of 2026-08-26

Minimum 5a · no upper limit documented · half zone precision · derived containing band

Exact source measurement: -18°F; mapped only to its containing half-zone.

Source taxon: Andropogon ternarius · source identifier match.

Source location: PlantCharacteristics record 20361, Temperature, Minimum (°F).

Where its sources say to plant it

Placement rules below use each source's own distances or named zones, tied to its rating. They are not interchangeable with the directory's current Zone 0 guidance.

North Carolina Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox: anatherum-ternarium [nc-toolbox-flammability-facet] (with its avoid rating)

The evidence

Grouped by what each source concluded. Primary evidence rated the plant itself (a lab, field program, or original curation); corroboration compiled or republished another source's rating and resolves to its root lineage.

Avoids (3)

Firewise Landscaping in North Carolina (E05-44596) — NC State University / NC Cooperative Extension + USFWS (Bardon, Van Druten) · 2005 · original source Primary evidence Expert-curated lineage: nc-tree

“Extreme flammability rating”
Fire-Resistant Landscaping in North Carolina (AG-874) — NC State Extension (Kays, Fawcett, Query, Thompson-Welch, Bardon) · 2025 · original source Primary evidence Expert-curated lineage: nc-tree

“high flammability”

2005 list class was extreme; 2025 revision rates it high.
North Carolina Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox — plant profiles and flammability ratings — NC State Extension (plants.ces.ncsu.edu) · live facet capture accessed 2026-08-23 · original source Corroboration Expert-curated lineage: nc-tree resolves to Firewise Landscaping in North Carolina (E05-44596)

“high flammability” · original source

NC Toolbox facet capture lists "Anatherum ternarium" under the high flammability tag. Exact GBIF reconciliation: "Anatherum ternarium" → "Andropogon ternarius".

Listed without a rating (8)

FLAMITS: FLAMmability plant traiTS database — Dryad / Global Ecology and Biogeography · Dryad version 9 · original source Corroboration Trait database lineage: meta-aggregator

8 cited rows from this source; its identity, lineage and tier are stated once.
- “time to flaming (s): 1.636” · score 1.636 (FLAMITS — time to flaming (s))
  
  FLAMITS record 15877; Ignitability measurement; plant part whole plant; fuel live; predrying no; device burning bench; site Gao2022-1; sampling spring 2019. Primary study Gao2022: Gao, X., & Schwilk, D. W. (2022). Burn hot or tolerate trees: flammability decreases with shade tolerance in grasses. Oikos, 4, e08930.
- “flaming duration (s): 34.142” · score 34.142 (FLAMITS — flaming duration (s))
  
  FLAMITS record 15878; Sustainability measurement; plant part whole plant; fuel live; predrying no; device burning bench; site Gao2022-1; sampling spring 2019. Primary study Gao2022: Gao, X., & Schwilk, D. W. (2022). Burn hot or tolerate trees: flammability decreases with shade tolerance in grasses. Oikos, 4, e08930.
- “smouldering duration (s): 13.238” · score 13.238 (FLAMITS — smouldering duration (s))
  
  FLAMITS record 15879; Sustainability measurement; plant part whole plant; fuel live; predrying no; device burning bench; site Gao2022-1; sampling spring 2019. Primary study Gao2022: Gao, X., & Schwilk, D. W. (2022). Burn hot or tolerate trees: flammability decreases with shade tolerance in grasses. Oikos, 4, e08930.
- “flame height (cm): 82” · score 82 (FLAMITS — flame height (cm))
  
  FLAMITS record 15880; Combustibility measurement; plant part whole plant; fuel live; predrying no; device burning bench; site Gao2022-1; sampling spring 2019. Primary study Gao2022: Gao, X., & Schwilk, D. W. (2022). Burn hot or tolerate trees: flammability decreases with shade tolerance in grasses. Oikos, 4, e08930.
- “time to flaming (s): 1.36” · score 1.36 (FLAMITS — time to flaming (s))
  
  FLAMITS record 15881; Ignitability measurement; plant part whole plant; fuel live; predrying no; device burning bench; site Gao2022-1; sampling spring 2019. Primary study Gao2022: Gao, X., & Schwilk, D. W. (2022). Burn hot or tolerate trees: flammability decreases with shade tolerance in grasses. Oikos, 4, e08930.
- “flaming duration (s): 23.592” · score 23.592 (FLAMITS — flaming duration (s))
  
  FLAMITS record 15882; Sustainability measurement; plant part whole plant; fuel live; predrying no; device burning bench; site Gao2022-1; sampling spring 2019. Primary study Gao2022: Gao, X., & Schwilk, D. W. (2022). Burn hot or tolerate trees: flammability decreases with shade tolerance in grasses. Oikos, 4, e08930.
- “smouldering duration (s): 2.294” · score 2.294 (FLAMITS — smouldering duration (s))
  
  FLAMITS record 15883; Sustainability measurement; plant part whole plant; fuel live; predrying no; device burning bench; site Gao2022-1; sampling spring 2019. Primary study Gao2022: Gao, X., & Schwilk, D. W. (2022). Burn hot or tolerate trees: flammability decreases with shade tolerance in grasses. Oikos, 4, e08930.
- “flame height (cm): 42.8” · score 42.8 (FLAMITS — flame height (cm))
  
  FLAMITS record 15884; Combustibility measurement; plant part whole plant; fuel live; predrying no; device burning bench; site Gao2022-1; sampling spring 2019. Primary study Gao2022: Gao, X., & Schwilk, D. W. (2022). Burn hot or tolerate trees: flammability decreases with shade tolerance in grasses. Oikos, 4, e08930.

Fire-resistant grasss instead

Whitegrass
Leersia virginica

Fox sedge
Carex vulpinoidea

Fescue, Tall
Festuca arundinacea

Tall fescue
Lolium arundinaceum

Woolgrass bulrush
Scirpus cyperinus

Bottlebrush sedge
Carex comosa

Fire-resistant grasss listed above

Last verified 2026-08-23. JSON (CC BY 4.0)

Profiles: USDA PLANTS · GBIF · iNaturalist · Wikidata · ITIS

Andropogon ternarius (Splitbeard bluestem). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/andropogon-temarius/. Last verified 2026-08-23.