PlantKey Open ecological atlas
Planner
Home / Browse / Digitaria / Yellow Crabgrass
iNaturalist — CC, credited & licensed per image
Poaceae family

Yellow Crabgrass Digitaria fuscescens

Yellow Crabgrass is an introduced annual grass, found in Hawaii and the Pacific Basin.

⚠ Invasive here — plant a native instead USDA + GBIF

Yellow Crabgrass is flagged invasive in the U.S. These natives fill a similar niche — same growth habit, bloom season, height, and region — so you keep the look and feed local wildlife instead of spreading a problem.

Native
Velvetleaf Soldierbush
Heliotropium foertherianum
●●●●○
Daly River Satinash
Native
Daly River Satinash
Syzygium nervosum
●●●●○
Sweet Acacia
Native
Sweet Acacia
Vachellia farnesiana
●●●●○
Achyranthes splendens var. atollensis
Native
Achyranthes splendens var. atollensis
Achyranthes splendens var. atollensis
●●●○○
Matched on growth habit · bloom months · mature height · shared U.S. range (USDA + GBIF) — a starting point, not a prescription.

Growing & care

USDA PLANTS · TRY
Size & form
Sources · Size & form
USDA PLANTS — Lifespan
TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0) — Foliage
Lifespan
Annual
Foliage
Broadleaf
In the garden
Herb layer — Sits in the herb of a layered food forest or polyculture.Open guide →
derived roles
Species characteristics from USDA PLANTS (public domain) + TRY (CC BY) — general guidance, not a guarantee for your exact site. Deer "browsing" is documented palatability, not a deer-proof claim.

Wildlife & pollinators

How pollinator value is scored →
❧ Caterpillar hosts ~21 caterpillar species

Digitaria supports ~21 caterpillar species.

Native butterfly & moth caterpillars are the base of the terrestrial food web — most songbirds rear their young almost entirely on them. As a host for native Lepidoptera this is a moderate genus.

Recorded feeding on Digitaria in North America, including:

Anicla infecta · Green Cutworm Moth Faronta rubripennis · owlet moth Faronta tetera · owlet moth Fissicrambus mutabilis · Changeable Grass-Veneer Helicoverpa zea · Corn Earworm Hesperia attalus · Dotted Skipper
+ 8 more species →
Hesperia ottoe · Ottoe Skipper Hesperia sassacus · Indian Skipper Hylephila phyleus · Fiery Skipper Hypena scabra · Black Snout Leucania latiuscula · owlet moth Leucania ursula · Ursula Wainscot Mocis latipes · Small Mocis Mocis texana · Texas Mocis
Keystone count (genus-level) from Warren II 2026 (CC0) · Tallamy host-use records. Named species (a documented Nearctic sample, not exhaustive) from NHM HOSTS (CC0).
Species thumbnails re-hosted from iNaturalist — Creative Commons, credited per image (hover for credit). Click any species to see it on iNaturalist. Not exhaustive; many taxa have no openly-licensed photo yet.
Sources for this entry (11) Open & cited
[01] Scientific name & family — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[02] Growth habit & duration — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[03] Native status & distribution — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[04] Common name — USDA PLANTS (via GBIF)
[05] Invasive / introduced status — US-RIIS v2.0 (USGS)
[07] Ecological value — Warren II 2026 (CC0) · Tallamy host-use counts
[09] Caterpillar host count — Warren II 2026 (Dryad, CC0) · Tallamy host-use counts
[10] Caterpillar species — NHM HOSTS (CC0)
[11] County range — GBIF Open Data — open-licensed occurrences (CC0/CC-BY) → county
Spot an error or have a better photo? Every field links to its source, and the whole dataset is open.
Cite this page Open data, please attribute

PlantKey’s data is open under CC BY-SA 4.0 — free to reuse and adapt, with attribution and the same licence. Photos keep their own per-image licence + credit (see Sources above).

Citation

Loading…

BibTeX 
Loading…