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Sweet vernalgrass has a moderate flammability classification, which does not establish it as fire resistant.
Fire and Emergency New Zealand places it in the middle of a seven-level scale running from very low to very high, grounded in shoot-flammability testing at Lincoln University. “Moderate” is a flammability rating, so it should not be read as an assurance that this grass is a good choice for fire resistance.
A separate measurement describes how often the plant material ignited. The FLAMITS database, published through Dryad and Global Ecology and Biogeography, reports an ignition frequency of 75 percent in grill testing of predried whole-plant material. In plain terms, ignition occurred in three quarters of the test observations under those conditions. That percentage describes the tested material’s response to the experiment; it is not a forecast of the chance that a growing plant will catch fire in a garden.
The classification and the ignition measurement serve different purposes. One assigns a flammability band; the other reports a particular response under specified conditions. FLAMITS preserves those experimental details and does not impose a single recommendation threshold across unlike measurements. For someone choosing plants around a home, these results warrant caution about calling sweet vernalgrass fire resistant: the moderate classification and the observed ignition do not support that reassurance.
Form
grass
Rated in
Global; New Zealand
Uses
pasture
On this lot
1. Fire evidence and conditions
Fire evidence
Mixed evidence — location does not change the cited classification.
Fire-performance conditions
Fire ecology context
Placement evidence
Evidence regions
Global; New Zealand
Maintenance
2. Why this plant is relevant here
State distribution
Documented in AK, AL, AR, CA, CO, CT, DC, DE, GA, HI, ID, IL, IN, KY, LA, MA, MD, ME, MI, MO, MS, NC, NH, NJ, NM, NY, OH, OR, PA, RI, SC, TN, TX, VA, VT, WA, WI, WV.
Native range
Introduced / established
39 sourced range or established records. This is not an invasive warning.
USDA hardiness
3. Legal, ecological, and broader status
Legal-list status
Seed-list status
Reported invasive here
3 ecological invasive reports.
Broader regional context
Federal context
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.
Native and introduced range evidence
These are exact U.S. botanical-area records from the cited range source. Native and
introduced describe biogeographic relationship, not fire performance or planting approval.
Doubtful and extinct rows stay visible but do not count as current presence.
The lossless worldwide derivative is retained once in the research corpus; object pages repeat only exact U.S. areas needed by the local lens. The JSON twin carries the same page assertions.
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.
Mid-scale / conditional (1)
Low Flammability Plants directory — Fire and Emergency New Zealand (plant flammability testing at Lincoln University) · 2026 · original sourcePrimary evidenceLab-testedlineage: lincoln-nz-tree
“Moderate flammability”
Moderate flammability classification.
Listed without a rating (8)Corroboration (8 rows from 1 source)
8 cited rows from this source; its identity, lineage and tier are stated once.
Primary study Cui2020a: Cui, X., Paterson, A. M., Wyse, S. V., Alam, M. A., Maurin, K. J. L., Pieper, R., ... Curran, T. J. (2020a). Shoot flammability of vascular plants is phylogenetically conserved and related to habitat fire-proneness and growth form. Nature Plants, 6, 355-359.
Shared row context: plant part whole plant; fuel all; predrying yes; device grill; site Cui2020a-1; sampling ND.
“ignition frequency (%): 75”
FLAMITS record 1335; Ignitability measurement.
“maximum sample temperature (°C): 330.1”
FLAMITS record 1529; Combustibility measurement.
“burning duration (s): 2.4”
FLAMITS record 1723; Sustainability measurement.
“estimated burnt biomass (%): 56.3”
FLAMITS record 1917; Consumability measurement.
Primary study Padulles2018: Padullés-Cubino, J., Buckley, H. L., Day, N. J., Pieper, R., & Curran, T. J. (2018). Community-level flammability declines over 25 years of plant invasion in grasslands. Journal of Ecology, 106, 1582-1594.
Shared row context: plant part whole plant; fuel all; predrying yes; device grill; site Padulles2018-1; sampling 1982 to 2007.
