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Common starlily is rated fire resistant, with a favorable Colorado score and uncertainty at higher elevations in New Mexico's planting guidance.
Colorado's ignition-resistant plant guide lists Leucocrinum montanum as sand lily and gives it a score of 10. The publication uses a zero-to-ten scale, with ten indicating the least ignitability. That makes sand lily favorable within this particular scoring system. The guidance also requires regular watering and removal of dead material regardless of a plant's score.
New Mexico includes sand lily in its FireWise flowers and ground covers. The four columns spanning 4,000–7,000 feet all recommend it. At 8,000 and 9,000-plus feet, the entries mean unknown or doubtful. Those upper-elevation marks express uncertainty about suitability; they should not become a confident recommendation for a mountain garden.
Oregon State also profiles the species as sand lily for the Willamette Valley. The scientific name connects that regional recommendation to the Colorado score and New Mexico table. Together they support a fire-resistant choice, while the site's elevation and the ongoing care of the planting remain part of the decision.
Form
perennial
Water need
low
Rated in
Black Hills, South Dakota; Colorado / Rocky Mountain Front Range; Fremont County, Wyoming; New Mexico +1
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.
Black Hills (SD footprint); partial normalized coverage
The page explicitly limits itself to the Black Hills, and NFPA Firewise's archived 2006 plant-list index files it under South Dakota. FireApproved publishes 47 exact genus or species owners from 48 printed rows. This is bounded Black Hills context, not statewide South Dakota coverage or a finding that a plant suits a particular site.
Fremont County (WY footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2011-02-25
The source identifies itself as the Fremont County Firewise Plant List. FireApproved publishes its 92 exact source owners as Fremont County regional context. No methodology, current county endorsement, statewide Wyoming scope, or site-specific suitability is inferred.
New Mexico Forestry Division publishes this as its FireWise Plant List for New Mexico. FireApproved accounts for all 140 printed rows and publishes 95 exact same-rank owners already represented in the directory; 29 exact taxa without an existing record, 14 unresolved spellings or higher-rank matches, one compound taxon cell, and one species row whose only apparent owner has an infraspecific printed identity remain held. Every published row retains the source's Y, N, ?, or blank elevation cells. Publication scope does not erase those elevation limits or establish suitability for every New Mexico site.
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 AZ, CA, CO, ID, MT, ND, NE, NM, NV, OR, SD, UT, WY.
Native range
Current cited native range in AZ, CA, CO, ID, MT, ND, NE, NM, NV, OR, SD, UT, WY.
Introduced / established
USDA hardiness
Documented range 6–9.
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.
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.
6–9 explicit range · whole zone precision · source stated
Source taxon: Leucocrinum montanum · exact match.
Source location: Sand Lily profile (PDF page 84).
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.
Fire-resistant Landscape Plants for the Willamette Valley: Sand Lily profile (PDF page 84) [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)
Firewise Plant Material for the Black Hills: Flowers & groundcovers [black-hills-plant-form-table] (with its recommendation)
FireWise Plant List for New Mexico: PDF page 5, Flowers and Ground Covers, p5-r32 [nm-emnrd-firewise-table-row] (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.
“Fremont County Firewise Plant List — Leucocrinum montanum — Sand Lily”
Listed in the source's Ground Covers section; the page describes its listed Firewise plants as generally low-growing, low-debris, and relatively moist.
The introduction describes all table entries as fire-resistive plants that can be used in landscaping.
FireWise Plant List for New Mexico — New Mexico Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department, Forestry Division · 2003 Forestry Division PDF · original sourceCorroborationCompilationlineage: csu-nmsu-firewise
“FireWise Plant List for New Mexico”
Listed as Leucocrinum montanum (Sand lily) in Flowers and Ground Covers. Printed elevation cells: 4,000 ft=Y, 5,000 ft=Y, 6,000 ft=Y, 7,000 ft=Y, 8,000 ft=?, 9,000+ ft=?. Water need: L-M; sun/shade: S; mature height: <1’; approximate bloom: May.
