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tanglehead

Heteropogon contortus · Poaceae · all Heteropogon records · also called Heteropogon contortus · Wikipedia

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Is this one for your yard?

Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.

Form
grass
Mature height
~0.7 ft
Water need
low
Rated in
Global
On this lot

1. Fire evidence and conditions

Fire evidence
Mixed evidence — location does not change the cited classification.
Evidence regions
Global

2. Why this plant is relevant here

State distribution
Documented in AZ, CA, FL, HI, NM, PR, TX, VI.
Native range
Current cited native range in AZ, CA, FL, HI, NM, PR, TX.
USDA hardiness
Documented minimum 7b; no upper limit is documented.

3. Legal, ecological, and broader status

Seed-list status
1 state noxious-weed seed record; the Place chip matches exact scope.
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.

Current native

7

exact source areas

Current introduced

0

exact source areas

Qualified

0

doubtful or extinct source rows

7 native source areas · World Checklist of Vascular Plants, version 16 v16, as of 2026-06-04
  • Arizona (AZ)
  • California (CA)
  • Florida (FL)
  • Hawaii (HI)
  • New Mexico (NM)
  • Puerto Rico (PR)
  • Texas (TX)

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.

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 (6)
Corroboration (6 rows from 1 source)
  • FLAMITS: FLAMmability plant traiTS database — Dryad / Global Ecology and Biogeography · Dryad version 9 · original source Corroboration Trait database lineage: meta-aggregator

    6 cited rows from this source; its identity, lineage and tier are stated once.

    • Primary study Simpson2016: Simpson, K. J., Ripley, B. S., Christin, P. A., Belcher, C. M., Lehmann, C. E., Thomas, G. H., & Osborne, C P. (2016). Determinants of flammability in savanna grass species. Journal of Ecology, 104, 138-148.

      Shared row context: plant part leaves; fuel live; device epiradiator; site Simpson2016-1; sampling july.

      • “time to flaming (s): 1.93”

        FLAMITS record 12788; Ignitability measurement; predrying no.

      • “time to flaming (s): 1.24”

        FLAMITS record 12789; Ignitability measurement; predrying yes.

      • “mass loss rate (g/s): 0.04”

        FLAMITS record 12842; Combustibility measurement; predrying no.

      • “mass loss rate (g/s): 0.03”

        FLAMITS record 12843; Combustibility measurement; predrying yes.

      • “flaming duration (s): 4.73”

        FLAMITS record 12890; Sustainability measurement; predrying no.

      • “flaming duration (s): 5.1”

        FLAMITS record 12891; Sustainability measurement; predrying yes.

Fire-resistant grasss instead

Last verified 2026-08-25. JSON (CC BY 4.0)

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

Heteropogon contortus (Heteropogon contortus). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/heteropogon-contortus/. Last verified 2026-08-25.