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Poaceae family

Hard Fescue Festuca brevipila

Hard Fescue is an introduced plant, found in Canada and the lower 48 states.

More about this plant

Festuca brevipila, also known as hard fescue, is a species of grass which can be found everywhere in Canada and in both the Eastern and Central United States. Wikipedia →

Growing & care

USDA PLANTS · TRY
Conditions
Sources · Conditions
Cold hardiness (derived) — Hardiness
Hardiness
≥ zone 4 derived from its U.S. range
Size & form
Sources · Size & form
TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0) — Foliage
Foliage
Broadleaf
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 ~4 caterpillar species

Festuca supports ~4 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 modest genus.

Recorded feeding on Festuca in North America, including:

Agriphila straminella · snout moth Apamea obscuroides · owlet moth Chrysoteuchia culmella · snout moth Chrysoteuchia topiaria · snout moth Coenonympha tullia · Common Ringlet Gynaephora groenlandica · tussock moth
+ 8 more species →
Hesperia comma · Silver-Spotted Skipper Hesperia lindseyi · Lindsey's Skipper Hesperia miriamae · skipper butterfly Hesperia nevada · Nevada Skipper Hesperia sassacus · Indian Skipper Oeneis alberta · Alberta Arctic Oeneis bore · brush-footed butterfly Oeneis polixenes · Polixenes Arctic
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.
How we know this (1) Methods & honest limits
Photosynthesis Direct fact

A recorded categorical fact: each species is tagged C3 (standard), C4 (heat/water-efficient) or CAM (succulent, night-time CO₂ uptake) — or a facultative combination. We only show a trait card for the noteworthy C4/CAM cases; C3 is the unremarkable majority, kept in the data but not surfaced as a card.

Kattge, J. et al. TRY plant trait database — Categorical Traits Dataset (2012).
Derived values are computed from open data by a published method — labelled, cited, and never shown as a direct observation. Full methodology →
Sources for this entry (13) 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 — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503) — native status
[07] Description — Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
[08] Ecological value — Warren II 2026 (CC0) · Tallamy host-use counts
[10] Photosynthetic pathway — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)
[11] Cold hardiness (derived) — Derived from U.S. range × USDA PHZM zones
[12] Caterpillar host count — Warren II 2026 (Dryad, CC0) · Tallamy host-use counts
[13] Caterpillar species — NHM HOSTS (CC0)
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).

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