Aristida purpurea

Purple three awn

Family: Poaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Purple three awn is a native perennial grass found in various California bioregions in grassland and open woodland habitats. Flowering from May to July, this plant produces purple-tinged flowers with delicate, thin glumes and three distinctive spreading awns. Growing 10 to 100 centimeters tall with generally erect, unbranched stems, it forms dense, sometimes compact clumps in dry landscapes. Its leaf blades are very narrow, typically 5 to 25 centimeters long and less than 2 millimeters wide, often tightly inrolled to conserve moisture in arid environments. The plant's characteristic three-awned seed heads provide excellent identification, with awns of nearly equal length creating a distinctive, feathery appearance.

California counties: Riverside, San Bernardino, Orange, San Diego, Imperial, Ventura, Inyo

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.