Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.
Dotted blazing star is rated fire resistant, but Texas guidance adds a close-to-house restriction for a named variety.
Travis County places Liatris punctata var. mucronata on its list of plants to avoid within thirty feet of a structure. It directs those plants to the outer landscape zones. Sun City Texas, meanwhile, assigns low flammability hazard to Liatris mucronata. The Sun City classification describes how readily a plant burns under prolonged high temperatures; Travis addresses placement. A low hazard entry therefore does not cancel the named variety's exclusion from the Travis inner zone.
For Liatris punctata itself, the Southern Idaho database records a fire-resistance score of seven. The accompanying key suggests a minimum distance of forty feet from the home. Its perennial guidance also calls for late-winter cutback and removal of dead material.
Oregon State's dotted gayfeather profile describes a plant that tolerates dry, poor soil but dislikes soggy conditions. Fremont County also includes Liatris punctata in its Firewise list, where spacing and maintenance qualify the selections. These recommendations support the species while leaving a practical distinction intact: match the botanical name, preserve the Texas restriction when choosing var. mucronata, and keep Idaho's suggested separation attached to its score.
Form
perennial
Mature height
~2 ft
Water need
moderate
Rated in
Austin, Texas; Fremont County, Wyoming; Georgetown, Texas; New Mexico +2
On this lot
1. Fire evidence and conditions
Fire evidence
Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
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.
Southern Idaho (ID footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2013-11-08
The official database labels itself "For Southern Idaho" and describes Idaho residents at the urban-rangeland interface. FireApproved publishes 419 existing plant owners that cite its scored rows. This bounded Southern Idaho scope is regional context, not statewide coverage or a conclusion that the score transfers unchanged to every Idaho site.
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.
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.
Current cited native range in AR, CO, IA, IL, KS, LA, MI, MN, MO, MT, ND, NE, NM, OH, OK, SD, TX, WI, WY.
Introduced / established
USDA hardiness
2 applicable cited hardiness statements overlap but have different boundaries; compare each complete source row.
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.
Source location: PlantCharacteristics record 37435, 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.
Fire Resistance of Plants Master Database: plantable at 40' from home [Idaho minimum planting distance] (mid-scale rating)
Fire-resistant Landscape Plants for the Willamette Valley: Dotted Gayfeather profile (PDF page 49) [osu-em-9103-profile] (with its recommendation)
Firewise Landscaping: Perennials [Travis County Firewise page sections] (with its avoid rating)
Firewise Plant Guide: Perennials [Sun City plant-table sections] (with its recommendation)
FireWise Plant List for New Mexico: PDF page 5, Flowers and Ground Covers, p5-r33 [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 — Liatris punctata — Dotted Grayfeather”
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 table rates Gayfeather, Blaziing Star — Liatris mucronata low for flammability hazard, defined as the ease a plant can burn at high temperatures for a prolonged time.
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 Liatris punctata (Dotted gayfeather) 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=Y, 9,000+ ft=Y. Water need: VL/L; sun/shade: S; mature height: 1-2’; approximate bloom: Aug- Oct.
“Plants to Avoid for Zone 1 (within 30′ of Structure)”
Listed as Gayfeather — Liatris punctata var. mucronata. The page says Zone 1 entries should be restricted to zones 2 or 3; all-zone entries are highly flammable due to volatile oils or growth habit.
