United States / Grow / sacahuista

sacahuista (Nolina microcarpa)
Photo: (c) CK2AZ, some rights reserved (CC BY) (CC BY), via iNaturalist. Species-typical, not necessarily this cultivar.

sacahuista

Nolina microcarpa · Asparagaceae · all Nolina records · also called Bear Grass · Wikipedia

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Form
perennial
Mature height
~4 ft
Water need
low
Rated in
Arizona above 3,000 feet / interior Southwest; New Mexico; Yavapai County, Arizona
On this lot

1. Fire evidence and conditions

Fire evidence
Mixed evidence — location does not change the cited classification.
Placement evidence
1 source placement record; source schemes remain separate.
Evidence regions
Arizona above 3,000 feet / interior Southwest; New Mexico; Yavapai County, Arizona
Typed publication scope: 3 scopes across 3 cited fire sources
  • FireWise Plant List for New Mexico · Official scoped edition
    • NM; partial normalized coverage · 2003-10-08

      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.

  • FIREWISE Plant Materials for 3,000 ft. and Higher Elevations (AZ1289) · Official scoped edition
    • Arizona at or above 3,000 feet (AZ footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2011-12-01

      AZ1289 is explicitly limited to Arizona elevations of 3,000 feet and higher. FireApproved publishes 69 exact owners as regional Arizona context, retaining every water and elevation condition. It is never promoted to statewide low-desert guidance or an independent Tier 1 vote.

  • Fire-Resistant and Fire-Prone Plants Common to Yavapai County (Bulletin 34) · Official scoped edition
    • Yavapai County (AZ footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2025-03-14

      University of Arizona Cooperative Extension authors Bulletin 34 for Yavapai County. FireApproved publishes 198 exact source owners from its resistant and prone tables and keeps the county boundary visible. County publication scope is regional Arizona context, never statewide scope.

2. Why this plant is relevant here

State distribution
Documented in AZ, NM, UT.
Native range
Current cited native range in AZ, NM.
USDA hardiness
Documented minimum 8a; no upper limit is documented.

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

2

exact source areas

Current introduced

0

exact source areas

Qualified

0

doubtful or extinct source rows

2 native source areas · World Checklist of Vascular Plants, version 16 v16, as of 2026-06-04
  • Arizona (AZ)
  • New Mexico (NM)

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.

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.

Recommends (3)

Corroboration (3 rows from 3 sources)
  • FIREWISE Plant Materials for 3,000 ft. and Higher Elevations (AZ1289) — University of Arizona Cooperative Extension · 2011 revision · original source Corroboration Compilation lineage: csu-nmsu-firewise

    “listed FIREWISE plant material”

    Listed among fire-resistant plant materials for Arizona above 3,000 feet.

  • Fire-Resistant and Fire-Prone Plants Common to Yavapai County (Bulletin 34) — University of Arizona Cooperative Extension, Yavapai County · v1.2 · original source Corroboration Expert-curated lineage: unknown

    “Fire-Resistant Plants”

    Listed as Bear Grass — Nolina microcarpa. The bulletin says fire-resistant plants tend to resist ignition when irrigated and maintained, while fire-prone plants may ignite readily and burn intensely.

  • FireWise Plant List for New Mexico — New Mexico Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department, Forestry Division · 2003 Forestry Division PDF · original source Corroboration Compilation lineage: csu-nmsu-firewise

    “FireWise Plant List for New Mexico”

    Listed as Nolina microcarpa (Beargrass) in Shrubs. 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=N. Water need: VL-L; sun/shade: S; mature height: 3’; approximate bloom: Jun.

Fire-resistant perennials instead

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

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

Nolina microcarpa (Bear Grass). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/nolina-microcarpa/. Last verified 2026-08-23.