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Fescue, Tall

Festuca arundinacea (accepted: Lolium arundinaceum) · Poaceae · all Festuca records · syn. Festuca arundinacea

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: 1 source placement record; source schemes remain separate.
Evidence regions: British Columbia; Montana / Northern Rockies
Maintenance: No sourced horticultural maintenance assertion is normalized; fire-test conditions do not supply maintenance advice.

Typed publication scope: 1 scope across 1 cited fire source

Fire-Resistant Plants for Montana Landscapes (MontGuide MT200101AG) · Official scoped edition
- MT; partial normalized coverage · 2022-04-01
  The April 2022 MontGuide explicitly presents fire-resistant species adapted to Montana. FireApproved publishes 92 exact plant records from the source while retaining excluded genus, family, and unresolved rows; the guide itself says not every listed species grows in every part of the state.

2. Why this plant is relevant here

State distribution: Documented in AK, AL, AR, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, DE, FL, GA, HI, IA, ID, IL, KS, KY, LA, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, MS, MT, NC, NE, NH, NJ, NM, NV, NY, OH, OK, OR, PA, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, VA, VT, WA, WI, WV, WY.
Native range: No current cited or legacy state native range is normalized.
Introduced / established: No introduced or established row is normalized; that does not prove native status.
USDA hardiness: Documented minimum 4b; 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.

Plant-specific state seed-list reviews (4)

These source-bound receipts answer only the July 2026 state noxious-weed seed-list question. They do not establish non-seed plant legal status, ecological invasion, nursery-sale rules, or unrestricted use.

NJ · Seed-list name scope unresolved. An exact source taxon is governed by “Restricted weed seed in lawn and turf seed and mixtures” or an applicable source note, so the qualified row is held instead of publishing an unconditional result. This answers only whether the plant identity appears in the July 2026 state noxious-weed seed sheet. It does not establish non-seed plant legal status, ecological-invasive status, nursery-sale rules, or unrestricted use. Held source row: usda-ams-state-noxious-weed-seed-2026:NJ:036. Governing seed section: Restricted weed seed in lawn and turf seed and mixtures; normalized seed-kind scope: lawn and turf seed; applicable note rows usda-ams-state-noxious-weed-seed-2026:NJ:029, usda-ams-state-noxious-weed-seed-2026:NJ:040, usda-ams-state-noxious-weed-seed-2026:NJ:041, usda-ams-state-noxious-weed-seed-2026:NJ:042, usda-ams-state-noxious-weed-seed-2026:NJ:047. Official USDA seed requirements. Normalized source record.
PA · Seed-list name scope unresolved. An exact source taxon is governed by “Restricted (Undesirable Grass Seeds) in lawn and turf seeds” or an applicable source note, so the qualified row is held instead of publishing an unconditional result. This answers only whether the plant identity appears in the July 2026 state noxious-weed seed sheet. It does not establish non-seed plant legal status, ecological-invasive status, nursery-sale rules, or unrestricted use. Held source row: usda-ams-state-noxious-weed-seed-2026:PA:048. Governing seed section: Restricted (Undesirable Grass Seeds) in lawn and turf seeds; normalized seed-kind scope: lawn and turf seed; applicable note rows usda-ams-state-noxious-weed-seed-2026:PA:053, usda-ams-state-noxious-weed-seed-2026:PA:054, usda-ams-state-noxious-weed-seed-2026:PA:055. Official USDA seed requirements. Normalized source record.
VA · Seed-list name scope unresolved. An exact source taxon is governed by “Restricted - Lawn and turf seed only” or an applicable source note, so the qualified row is held instead of publishing an unconditional result. This answers only whether the plant identity appears in the July 2026 state noxious-weed seed sheet. It does not establish non-seed plant legal status, ecological-invasive status, nursery-sale rules, or unrestricted use. Held source row: usda-ams-state-noxious-weed-seed-2026:VA:035. Governing seed section: Restricted - Lawn and turf seed only; normalized seed-kind scope: lawn and turf seed; applicable note rows usda-ams-state-noxious-weed-seed-2026:VA:040, usda-ams-state-noxious-weed-seed-2026:VA:041. Official USDA seed requirements. Normalized source record.
WV · Seed-list name scope unresolved. An exact source taxon is governed by “Restricted Noxious-weed Seed in Lawn and Turf Seed and Mixture” or an applicable source note, so the qualified row is held instead of publishing an unconditional result. This answers only whether the plant identity appears in the July 2026 state noxious-weed seed sheet. It does not establish non-seed plant legal status, ecological-invasive status, nursery-sale rules, or unrestricted use. Held source row: usda-ams-state-noxious-weed-seed-2026:WV:068. Governing seed section: Restricted Noxious-weed Seed in Lawn and Turf Seed and Mixture; normalized seed-kind scope: lawn and turf seed; applicable note rows usda-ams-state-noxious-weed-seed-2026:WV:059, usda-ams-state-noxious-weed-seed-2026:WV:079, usda-ams-state-noxious-weed-seed-2026:WV:080, usda-ams-state-noxious-weed-seed-2026:WV:081. Official USDA seed requirements. Normalized source record.

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.

Fescue, Tall (Festuca arundinacea) — Photo: (c) Георгий Виноградов (Georgy Vinogradov), some rights reserved (CC BY) (CC BY), via iNaturalist. Species-typical, not necessarily this cultivar.

Form: grass
USDA hardiness: Minimum 4b; upper limit not documented
Mature height: ~2 ft
Water need: high
Grows in: AK, AL, AR, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC +40
Rated in: British Columbia; Montana / Northern Rockies
Family: Poaceae
Evidence: 2 cited sources

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 SCAR7 · PLANTS Help Document 2022; characteristics cache retrieved 2026-08-23 · as of 2026-08-26

Minimum 4b · no upper limit documented · half zone precision · derived containing band

Exact source measurement: -23°F; mapped only to its containing half-zone.

Source taxon: Festuca arundinacea · source identifier match.

Source location: PlantCharacteristics record 25394, 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.

FireSmart BC Plant Program: suitable for HIZ intermediate zone (10-30 m) [FireSmart BC Home Ignition 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.

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

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

Festuca arundinacea (Fescue, Tall). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/festuca-arundinacea/. Last verified 2026-08-23.