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finestem needlegrass

Nassella tenuissima · Poaceae · all Nassella records · also called Nassella tenuissima · Wikipedia

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Form
grass
Rated in
Austin, Texas; Georgetown, Texas; Global
On this lot

1. Fire evidence and conditions

Fire evidence
Mixed evidence — location does not change the cited classification.
Placement evidence
2 source placement records; source schemes remain separate.
Evidence regions
Austin, Texas; Georgetown, Texas; Global
Typed publication scope: 2 scopes across 2 cited fire sources
  • Firewise Plant Guide · Official scoped edition
    • 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.

  • Firewise Landscaping (Travis County) · Official scoped edition
    • 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.

2. Why this plant is relevant here

State distribution
Documented in CA, NM, TX.
Native range
Current cited native range in CO, NM, TX.
Introduced / established
1 sourced range or established record. This is not an invasive warning.

3. Legal, ecological, and broader status

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

3

exact source areas

Current introduced

1

exact source area

Qualified

0

doubtful or extinct source rows

3 native source areas · World Checklist of Vascular Plants, version 16 v16, as of 2026-06-04
  • Colorado (CO)
  • New Mexico (NM)
  • Texas (TX)
1 introduced source area · World Checklist of Vascular Plants, version 16 v16, as of 2026-06-04
  • California (CA)

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.

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.

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.

Avoids (2)

Corroboration (2 rows from 2 sources)
  • Firewise Landscaping (Travis County) — Texas A&M AgriLife Extension, Travis County · page modified 2024-01-16 · original source Corroboration Compilation lineage: unknown

    “Plants to Avoid for Zone 1 (within 30′ of Structure)”

    Listed as Mexican Feathergrass (Wiregrass) — Nassella tenuissima. 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.

  • Firewise Plant Guide — Sun City Texas Firewise Group · updated January 14, 2015 · original source Corroboration HOA exhibit lineage: unknown

    “high”

    The table rates Mexican Feathergrass, wiregrass — Nassella tenuissima high for flammability hazard, defined as the ease a plant can burn at high temperatures for a prolonged time.

Listed without a rating (8)
Corroboration (8 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

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

    • Primary study Gao2022: Gao, X., & Schwilk, D. W. (2022). Burn hot or tolerate trees: flammability decreases with shade tolerance in grasses. Oikos, 4, e08930.

      Shared row context: plant part whole plant; fuel live; predrying no; device burning bench; site Gao2022-1; sampling spring 2019.

      • Shared measurement context: Ignitability measurement.

        • “time to flaming (s): 1.212”

          FLAMITS record 15949.

        • “time to flaming (s): 1.2625”

          FLAMITS record 15953.

      • Shared measurement context: Sustainability measurement.

        • “flaming duration (s): 22.992”

          FLAMITS record 15950.

        • “smouldering duration (s): 18.084”

          FLAMITS record 15951.

        • “flaming duration (s): 8.53”

          FLAMITS record 15954.

        • “smouldering duration (s): 6.29”

          FLAMITS record 15955.

      • Shared measurement context: Combustibility measurement.

        • “flame height (cm): 70.6”

          FLAMITS record 15952.

        • “flame height (cm): 27.5”

          FLAMITS record 15956.

Fire-resistant grasss instead

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

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

Nassella tenuissima (Nassella tenuissima). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/nassella-tenuissima/. Last verified 2026-08-25.