Dasyochloa pulchella

Low woollygrass

Family: Poaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Low woollygrass is a California native perennial found in Desert bioregions on sandy to rocky slopes, desert shrubland, and woodland at elevations of 300 to 1,700 meters. Flowering from February to May, this plant produces light-green or purple-tinged flower panicles 1 to 2.5 centimeters long with dense, spike-like branches. Growing as a stoloniferous or mat-forming grass with stems 4 to 10 centimeters tall that become bent and root at the base of the inflorescence, it spreads across the ground with distinctive white pubescence. Its folded leaf blades are 2 to 6 centimeters long, with leaf sheaths featuring a tuft of hairs at the throat and a delicate ligule of hairs 3 to 5 millimeters long. The plant's spikelets are densely hairy, with lemmas 3 to 5.5 millimeters long that are long-haired below and on the margins, giving the grass a soft, woolly appearance.

Habitat: Sandy to rocky slopes, flats, desert shrubland, woodland

Bloom period: Feb-May

Elevation: 300-1700 m

Bioregions: D

California counties: San Bernardino, Riverside, San Diego, Inyo, Imperial, Mono, Nevada

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