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Black prairie clover has favorable fire-resistance guidance, but not enough direct evidence for a firm verdict.
Texas A&M AgriLife Extension in Travis County explicitly names black prairie clover as an example of fire resistance. The Sun City Texas Firewise Group reaches a similar practical result, rating it low for flammability hazard. On that group’s scale, hazard means how easily a plant can burn at high temperatures for a prolonged period, and only ratings above medium trigger its warning against planting within five feet of a building. Two of two sources therefore point toward the safer side rather than presenting a disagreement about the shrub.
The caution comes from what those sources are. One is compiled extension guidance and the other is a homeowners’ association firewise exhibit, both from Central Texas. Their agreement is useful for landscaping decisions in that setting, but it is not the same as a direct experimental assessment establishing a broad fire-resistance verdict. Black prairie clover is a shrub in the Fabaceae family, native to the south-central and north-central United States. A homeowner can reasonably treat it as a promising firewise choice while keeping the claim narrow: Texas guidance favors it, but its fire behavior is not yet firmly settled.
Form
shrub
Rated in
Austin, Texas; Georgetown, Texas
On this lot
1. Fire evidence and conditions
Fire evidence
Mixed evidence — location does not change the cited classification.
Sun City Texas, Georgetown (TX footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2015-01-14
The guide is authored for the Sun City Texas community in Georgetown. FireApproved publishes 142 exact owners only as community-level context. It is an archived HOA exhibit with unknown rating lineage, not a current statewide Texas source or an independent Tier 1 determination.
Travis County, Austin area (TX footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2024-01-16
Texas A&M AgriLife Extension publishes this page through its Travis County horticulture program. FireApproved publishes 56 exact owners and retains the source's zone and warning conditions. This is county/Austin regional context, not a second statewide Texas table or site clearance.
2. Why this plant is relevant here
State distribution
Documented in NM, OK, TX.
Native range
Current cited native range in NM, OK, TX.
Introduced / established
USDA hardiness
3. Legal, ecological, and broader status
Legal-list status
Seed-list status
Reported invasive here
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.
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.
Firewise Landscaping: Fire resistance [Travis County Firewise page sections] (with its recommendation)
Firewise Plant Guide: Shrubs [Sun City plant-table sections] (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.
The table rates Dalea, Black — Dalea frutescens low for flammability hazard, defined as the ease a plant can burn at high temperatures for a prolonged time.
