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Poaceae family

Meadow Fescue Schedonorus pratensis

Meadow Fescue is an introduced perennial grass, found in Alaska, Canada, and Greenland. It blooms Jun – Aug.

⚠ Invasive here — plant a native instead USDA + GBIF

Meadow Fescue 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.

Appalachian Sedge
Native
Appalachian Sedge
Carex appalachica
●●●○○
Northern Cluster Sedge
Native
Northern Cluster Sedge
Carex arcta
●●●○○
Brownish Sedge
Native
Brownish Sedge
Carex brunnescens
●●●○○
Buxbaum's Sedge
Native
Buxbaum's Sedge
Carex buxbaumii
●●●○○
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
Conditions
Sources · Conditions
Cold hardiness (derived) — Hardiness
Hardiness
≥ zone 4 derived from its U.S. range
Size & form
Sources · Size & form
USDA PLANTS — Lifespan
Lifespan
Perennial
In the garden
Herb layer — Sits in the herb of a layered food forest or polyculture.Open guide →
derived roles
The garden year bloom → fruit → fall colour
J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Bloom
Bloom (the flower's colour)
Bloom · Jun – Aug — 153 obs · Herbarium specimens — Park et al. 2023 (CC BY 4.0)
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 →
Wildlife & visitors 1 bird · 1 mammal

Open records of who else uses Meadow Fescue — a generalist food-web signal, kept separate from the keystone Ecological Value.

Recorded eaten by 1 bird and 1 mammal species (fruit, seed, browse):

Plectrophenax nivalis · Snow Bunting Myocastor coypus · Coypu
Interaction records (observations, not exhaustive) from GloBI → (CC0). Counts are distinct species; names are the most-recorded. Common names from Wikidata (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)
[06] Wetland indicator — USACE National Wetland Plant List (2022)
[07] Ecological value — GloBI
[09] Conservation rank — NatureServe Explorer (CC BY)
[10] Cold hardiness (derived) — Derived from U.S. range × USDA PHZM zones
[11] Wildlife & visitors — GloBI — Global Biotic Interactions (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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