Current native
0
exact source areas
Home / Plants / Grow / Pampas grass
Pampas grass
Cortaderia selloana
Your local evidence lens
Separate evidence questions, never one approval badge
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
- 6 source placement records; source schemes remain separate.
- Evidence regions
- Ashland, Oregon; California; Catalonia, Spain; Georgetown, Texas; Marin County, California; OR; Tasmania, Australia; Yavapai County, Arizona; eastern US
- Maintenance
- No sourced horticultural maintenance assertion is normalized; fire-test conditions do not supply maintenance advice.
Typed publication scope: 5 scopes across 5 cited fire sources
- Prohibited Flammable Plants (Ashland Municipal Code 9.04) · Official scoped edition
- Fire-Resistant Plants Common to Marin County · Official scoped edition
- Defensible Space Landscaping in the Urban/Wildland Interface: A Compilation of Fire Performance Ratings of Residential Landscape Plants · Official scoped edition
- Firewise Plant Guide · Official scoped edition
- Fire-Resistant and Fire-Prone Plants Common to Yavapai County (Bulletin 34) · Official scoped edition
2. Why this plant is relevant here
- State distribution
- Documented in AL, CA, GA, LA, NJ, OR, SC, TN, TX, UT, VA, WA.
- Native range
- No current cited or legacy state native range is normalized.
- Introduced / established
- 13 sourced range or established records; set a location to match them. This is not an invasive warning.
- USDA hardiness
- Documented minimum 6b; no upper limit is documented.
3. Legal, ecological, and broader status
- Legal-list status
- 1 legal-list record; set a location to match exact scope.
- Seed-list status
- Set a location to compare the separate state noxious-weed seed layer.
- Reported invasive here
- 2 ecological invasive reports; set a location to distinguish exact from regional context.
- 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.
- Form
- grass
- USDA hardiness
- Minimum 6b; upper limit not documented
- Mature height
- ~5 ft
- Water need
- moderate
- Grows in
- AL, CA, GA, LA, NJ, OR, SC, TN +4
- Rated in
- Ashland, Oregon; California; Catalonia, Spain; Georgetown, Texas +5
- Family
- Poaceae
- Evidence
- 10 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 introduced
13
exact source areas
Qualified
0
doubtful or extinct source rows
13 introduced source areas
- Alabama (AL)
- California (CA)
- Florida (FL)
- Georgia (GA)
- Hawaii (HI)
- Louisiana (LA)
- New Jersey (NJ)
- Oregon (OR)
- South Carolina (SC)
- Tennessee (TN)
- Texas (TX)
- Utah (UT)
- Virginia (VA)
Plant hardiness evidence
-
Eastern United States Fire Performance Plant Selector
Source prints 8 · single-value meaning unresolved
-
USDA PLANTS Database — Plant Characteristics
Minimum 6b · no upper limit documented
Where its sources say to plant it
- Eastern United States Fire Performance Plant Selector: Landscape Zone 4 — beyond 30 ft; outside the selector's recommendation area
- Fire Resisting Garden Plants for the Urban Fringe and Rur…: remove from the Building Protection Zone; avoid in the Fuel Modified Zone
- Prohibited Flammable Plants: new planting or propagation restricted within 30 ft of any structure
- Guía de pirojardinería: prohibited as a regulated invasive plant; not a fire-suitability verdict
- Defensible Space Landscaping in the Urban/Wildland Interf…: Chapter 4, Landscape Vegetation Database
- Firewise Plant Guide: Avoid if Possible
The evidence
Avoids (9)
-
Best Practices for Fire Resistant Landscaping
“listed highly flammable”
-
Fire-Resistant vs. Highly Flammable Plants
“listed highly flammable”
-
Eastern United States Fire Performance Plant Selector
“NOT Firewise (4)”
Large clump decorative grass with very large white plumes summer throughout winter. Source of fireload material in the landscape.
-
Fire Resisting Garden Plants for the Urban Fringe and Rural Areas
“High Flammability”
Marked X: known environmental weed in Tasmania.
-
Prohibited Flammable Plants (Ashland Municipal Code 9.04)
“prohibited flammable plant”
The City of Ashland restricts new planting or propagation within 30 ft of any structure, including structures on adjacent lots (AMC 9.04).
-
Fire-Resistant Plants Common to Marin County
“listed as fire-prone”
Fire Safe Marin lists this taxon among common fire-prone plants in Marin County.
-
“Not recommended by 4 references for use in high fire risk areas.”
1997 Landscape Vegetation Database row: Cortaderia selloana (Pampas grass). Preserved UCFPL transcription marker: U4.
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Fire-Resistant and Fire-Prone Plants Common to Yavapai County (Bulletin 34)
“Fire-Prone Plants”
Listed as Pampus grass — Cortaderia selloana. The bulletin says fire-resistant plants tend to resist ignition when irrigated and maintained, while fire-prone plants may ignite readily and burn intensely.
-
“very high”
The table rates Pampas Grass — Cortaderia selloana very high for flammability hazard, defined as the ease a plant can burn at high temperatures for a prolonged time.
Listed without a rating (1)
-
“PROHIBIDA”
Cortaderia selloana is rated “PROHIBIDA” by the guide's qualitative IUF garden-suitability method. The method assumes species-specific care and integrates fire evidence with fuel structure, maintenance, origin, invasiveness, and expert fire-service experience.
