Index / Search / Digitaria californica

§1 Plant

Digitaria californica (Benth.) Henr.

vernacular Arizona cottontop — species · Poaceae


USDA
DICA8
GBIF
5289937
Rank
species
Arizona cottontop (Digitaria californica)
Platephotograph · Stephen RamirezCC BY-NC-ND source · iNaturalist ↗

§2Habit & range

Habit and range

Growth habit
Graminoid
Duration
Perennial
Group
Monocot
Family
Poaceae Barnhart
Genus
Digitaria
§2a

Native status, by region

  • L48 Lower 48 States Native
§2b

County-level range

· 97 counties across 6 states/territories
Legend Native · 97 Introduced · 0 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
Medium
Anaerobic
None
CaCO₃
Medium
Hedging
None
§3b

Climate & soil

Cold tolerance
-13 °F minimum
Frost-free days
150 min.
Precipitation
5–14 in/yr
pH range
7.5–8.3
Root depth
10 in min.
Fertility need
High
Soil texture
coarse, medium
§3c

Form & growth

Growth form
Bunch
Growth rate
Rapid
Lifespan
Short
Mature height
4 ft
Foliage texture
Medium
Foliage colour
Green
Porosity (summer)
Dense
Porosity (winter)
Porous
Flower colour
White
Fruit colour
Brown
Fire resistant
No
N fixation
None
Toxicity
None
§3d

Reproduction

Bloom period
Late Summer
Seed abundance
Low
Seed begins
Summer
Seed ends
Fall
Spread rate
Slow
Stratify
No
Seeds / lb
1,002,000
Propagation
seed
§3e

Use & availability

Commercial availability
Field Collections Only
Nursery stock
No
Browse palatability
Medium
Graze palatability
High
Palatable, human
No
Protein potential
Low
Lumber
No
Christmas tree
No

§4Counties, by state

Recorded in 97 counties across 6 states/territories.

Arizona view state ↗ 14 N
Colorado view state ↗ 2 N
Kansas view state ↗ 1 N
New Mexico view state ↗ 11 N
Oklahoma view state ↗ 4 N
Texas view state ↗ 65 N

§5Sources & provenance

USDA PLANTS

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

plants.usda.gov/DICA8 ↗

GBIF Backbone

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

gbif.org/species/5289937 ↗

Record version

Cached and built locally. Source version on this record:

usda-plants-mt-2026-05-26

fetched 2026-05-26T10:50:45Z