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Poaceae family

East Indian Bristlegrass Setaria barbata

East Indian Bristlegrass is an introduced annual grass, found in the lower 48 states and Puerto Rico.

⚠ Invasive here — plant a native instead USDA + GBIF

East Indian Bristlegrass 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.

Part of why it adapts so well: East Indian Bristlegrass is a polyploid complex — multiple chromosome races are on record (2n = 36, 54, 56). Spare genome copies give a plant extra raw material to evolve fast, and polyploidy is a documented correlate of successful plant invasions (te Beest et al. 2012). A labelled association from open cytology (ChromoDB), not a prediction for your specific site.

Sweet Acacia
Native
Sweet Acacia
Vachellia farnesiana
●●●●○
Bristlystalked Sedge
Native
Bristlystalked Sedge
Carex leptalea
●●●○○
Long's Sedge
Native
Long's Sedge
Carex longii
●●●○○
Awlfruit Sedge
Native
Awlfruit Sedge
Carex stipata
●●●○○
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 9 derived from its U.S. range
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 ~10 caterpillar species

Setaria supports ~10 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 for introduced plants — native genera typically support far more.

Recorded feeding on Setaria in North America, including:

Ancyloxypha numitor · Least Skipper Faronta albilinea · owlet moth Faronta diffusa · owlet moth Helicoverpa zea · Corn Earworm Hydraecia immanis · Hop Vine Borer Moth Hypena scabra · Black Snout
+ 6 more species →
Mesapamea stipata · owlet moth Ostrinia nubilalis · snout moth Papaipema nebris · Stalk Borer Pseudaletia unipuncta · White-Speck Spodoptera frugiperda · Fall Armyworm Moth Spodoptera praefica · Western Yellowstriped Armyworm
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 (15) 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] Functional traits — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)
[10] Photosynthetic pathway — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)
[11] Cold hardiness (derived) — Derived from U.S. range × USDA PHZM zones
[13] Caterpillar host count — Warren II 2026 (Dryad, CC0) · Tallamy host-use counts
[14] Caterpillar species — NHM HOSTS (CC0)
[15] 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).

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