Festuca brevipila Tracey

vernacular hard fescue — species · Poaceae

USDA: FEBR7
GBIF: 2704949 syn.
Rank: species

hard fescue (Festuca brevipila) — Platephotograph · Marcin DyderskiCC BY source · iNaturalist ↗

§2Habit & range

Growth habit: Graminoid
Duration: Perennial
Group: Monocot
Family: Poaceae Barnhart
Genus: Festuca

§2a

Native status, by region

CAN Canada Introduced
L48 Lower 48 States Introduced

§2b

County-level range

· 5 counties across 1 state

Legend Native · 0 Introduced · 5 Both · 0 Hover a county for detail.

§3Cultivation specs · USDA

Recorded by the USDA Plant Materials Program.

§3a

Tolerances

Drought: High
Shade: High
Moisture use: Low
Fire: Medium
Salinity: None
Anaerobic: None
CaCO₃: High
Hedging: None

§3b

Climate & soil

Cold tolerance: -38 °F minimum
Frost-free days: 90 min.
Precipitation: 12–26 in/yr
pH range: 4.5–8.5
Root depth: 10 in min.
Fertility need: Low
Soil texture: coarse, medium, fine

§3c

Form & growth

Growth form: Bunch
Growth rate: Slow
Lifespan: Moderate
Mature height: 0.5 ft
Foliage texture: Fine
Foliage colour: Gray-Green
Porosity (summer): Moderate
Porosity (winter): Porous
Flower colour: Yellow
Fruit colour: Brown
Fire resistant: No
N fixation: None
Toxicity: None

§3d

Reproduction

Bloom period: Late Spring
Seed abundance: High
Seed begins: Spring
Seed ends: Summer
Spread rate: Slow
Stratify: No
Seeds / lb: 591,920
Propagation: seed

§3e

Use & availability

Commercial availability: Routinely Available
Nursery stock: No
Browse palatability: Medium
Graze palatability: Low
Palatable, human: No
Protein potential: Medium
Lumber: No
Christmas tree: No

§4Counties, by state

Recorded in 5 counties across 1 state.

Rhode Island view state ↗ 5 I ▾

§5Sources & provenance

USDA PLANTS

Symbol, taxonomy, distribution, cultivation specs, native status. Public domain.

plants.usda.gov/FEBR7 ↗

GBIF Backbone

Canonical taxonomic identity, synonym resolution, cross-refs. CC0.

gbif.org/species/2704949 ↗

Record version

Cached and built locally. Source version on this record:

usda-plants-mt-2026-05-25

fetched 2026-05-25T18:27:19Z