Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.
False leopardbane is rated fire resistant, with recommendations from all three institutions that assessed it.
Oregon State University Extension includes Doronicum spp. among fire-resistant plants suited to Willamette Valley growing conditions. False leopardbane scores 10 out of 10 for ignitability in the table from Colorado State University Extension and the Colorado State Forest Service, meeting their threshold of 8 through 10 for defensible-space zones 1 and 2.
FireSmart BC also calls it a FireSmart-approved fire-resistant plant, although it flags the plant as needing more research. That qualification does not reverse the approval, but it does counsel against treating “fire resistant” as “unable to burn.” The three sources approach the question differently: one is an expert-curated regional guide, another uses a scored plant table, and the third is a compiled approval chart. Their conclusions still point in the same direction.
False leopardbane is a high-water perennial in the aster family, with a stated hardiness range of USDA zones 4a through 8b. Taken together, the findings support using it as a fire-resistant landscape plant, while FireSmart BC’s research flag leaves room for later refinement.
Form
perennial
Water need
high
Rated in
British Columbia; Colorado / Rocky Mountain Front Range; Oregon (Willamette Valley)
On this lot
1. Fire evidence and conditions
Fire evidence
Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
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.
Willamette Valley (OR footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2015-02-01
OSU Extension says EM 9103 highlights fire-resistant plants that thrive under Willamette Valley growing conditions. FireApproved publishes 172 exact owners only as valley context. The guide shares the PNW 590 lineage and is not a second independent vote or statewide site clearance.
2. Why this plant is relevant here
State distribution
Documented in CO.
Native range
Introduced / established
USDA hardiness
Documented range 4–8.
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.
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.
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-resistant Landscape Plants for the Willamette Valley: Leopard's Bane profile (PDF page 62) [osu-em-9103-profile] (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.
