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Blue Grama

Bouteloua gracilis · Poaceae · all Bouteloua records

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: Fire-resistant — 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: 3 source placement records; source schemes remain separate.
Evidence regions: Arizona above 3,000 feet / interior Southwest; British Columbia; Colorado / Rocky Mountain Front Range; Global; southern Idaho / Intermountain
Maintenance: No sourced horticultural maintenance assertion is normalized; fire-test conditions do not supply maintenance advice.

Typed publication scope: 3 scopes across 3 cited fire sources

Ignition-Resistant Landscape Plants (Fact Sheet 6.305) · Official scoped edition
- CO; partial normalized coverage · 2025-07-01
  Colorado State University Extension and the Colorado State Forest Service publish Fact Sheet 6.305 for Colorado's WUI and varied ecosystems. FireApproved exposes all 114 exact source owners at Colorado publication scope while retaining score, elevation, water, and Idaho-carrier lineage. Publication scope is not suitability for every Colorado site or zone.
Fire Resistance of Plants Master Database · Official scoped edition
- Southern Idaho (ID footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2013-11-08
  The official database labels itself "For Southern Idaho" and describes Idaho residents at the urban-rangeland interface. FireApproved publishes 419 existing plant owners that cite its scored rows. This bounded Southern Idaho scope is regional context, not statewide coverage or a conclusion that the score transfers unchanged to every Idaho site.
FIREWISE Plant Materials for 3,000 ft. and Higher Elevations (AZ1289) · Official scoped edition
- Arizona at or above 3,000 feet (AZ footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2011-12-01
  AZ1289 is explicitly limited to Arizona elevations of 3,000 feet and higher. FireApproved publishes 69 exact owners as regional Arizona context, retaining every water and elevation condition. It is never promoted to statewide low-desert guidance or an independent Tier 1 vote.

2. Why this plant is relevant here

State distribution: Documented in AZ, CA, CO, CT, FL, IA, ID, IL, KS, MA, ME, MI, MN, MO, MT, ND, NE, NM, NV, NY, OH, OK, SC, SD, TX, UT, WI, WY.
Native range: Current cited native range in AZ, CA, CO, IA, ID, IL, KS, MI, MN, MO, MT, ND, NE, NM, NV, OH, OK, SD, TX, UT, WI, WY.
Introduced / established: 6 sourced range or established records; set a location to match them. This is not an invasive warning.
USDA hardiness: Documented minimum 5b; 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.

Blue Grama (Bouteloua gracilis) — Photo: (c) Matt Lavin, some rights reserved (CC BY) (CC BY), via iNaturalist. Species-typical, not necessarily this cultivar.

Form: grass
USDA hardiness: Minimum 5b; upper limit not documented
Mature height: ~0.5 ft
Water need: low
Current cited native range: AZ, CA, CO, IA, ID, IL, KS, MI, MN, MO, MT, ND, NE, NM, NV, OH, OK, SD, TX, UT, WI, WY
Grows in: AZ, CA, CO, CT, FL, IA, ID, IL +20
Rated in: Arizona above 3,000 feet / interior Southwest; British Columbia; Colorado / Rocky Mountain Front Range; Global +1
Family: Poaceae
Evidence: 12 cited sources

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.

Current native

22

exact source areas

Current introduced

6

exact source areas

Qualified

0

doubtful or extinct source rows

22 native source areas · World Checklist of Vascular Plants, version 16 v16, as of 2026-06-04

Arizona (AZ)
California (CA)
Colorado (CO)
Iowa (IA)
Idaho (ID)
Illinois (IL)
Kansas (KS)
Michigan (MI)
Minnesota (MN)
Missouri (MO)
Montana (MT)
North Dakota (ND)
Nebraska (NE)
New Mexico (NM)
Nevada (NV)
Ohio (OH)
Oklahoma (OK)
South Dakota (SD)
Texas (TX)
Utah (UT)
Wisconsin (WI)
Wyoming (WY)

6 introduced source areas · World Checklist of Vascular Plants, version 16 v16, as of 2026-06-04

Connecticut (CT)
Florida (FL)
Massachusetts (MA)
Maine (ME)
New York (NY)
South Carolina (SC)

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.

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 BOGR2 · PLANTS Help Document 2022; characteristics cache retrieved 2026-08-23 · as of 2026-08-26

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

Exact source measurement: -13°F; mapped only to its containing half-zone.

Source taxon: Bouteloua gracilis · source identifier match.

Source location: PlantCharacteristics record 20765, 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.

Fire Resistance of Plants Master Database: plantable at 20' from home [Idaho minimum planting distance] (with its recommendation)
FireSmart BC Plant Program: suitable for HIZ extended zone (30-100 m) [FireSmart BC Home Ignition Zone] (with its recommendation)
Ignition-Resistant Landscape Plants: suitable for defensible-space zones 1-2 (score 8+) [CSU defensible-space zone] (with its recommendation)

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.

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): 1.508” · score 1.508 (FLAMITS — time to flaming (s))
  
  FLAMITS record 15901; 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): 27.424” · score 27.424 (FLAMITS — flaming duration (s))
  
  FLAMITS record 15902; 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): 10.036” · score 10.036 (FLAMITS — smouldering duration (s))
  
  FLAMITS record 15903; 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): 54.2” · score 54.2 (FLAMITS — flame height (cm))
  
  FLAMITS record 15904; 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): 1.126” · score 1.126 (FLAMITS — time to flaming (s))
  
  FLAMITS record 15905; 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): 9.812” · score 9.812 (FLAMITS — flaming duration (s))
  
  FLAMITS record 15906; 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): 4.158” · score 4.158 (FLAMITS — smouldering duration (s))
  
  FLAMITS record 15907; 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): 30.4” · score 30.4 (FLAMITS — flame height (cm))
  
  FLAMITS record 15908; 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.

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

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

Bouteloua gracilis (Blue Grama). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/bouteloua-gracilis/. Last verified 2026-08-23.