Hesperostipa spartea
species of plant
Hesperostipa spartea, formerly Stipa spartea, is a species of grass known by the common names porcupine grass, western porcupine grass, short-awn porcupine grass, porcupine needlegrass, and big needlegrass. It is native to North America, where it is widespread from British Columbia to Ontario in Canada and through the central and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It is a bunchgrass species in the genus Hesperostipa.
Distribution
Hesperostipa spartea is native to the Great Plains and Canadian Prairies of North America. It is also found in grasslands of the Rocky Mountains in Western Canada and the Western United States.
This grass is common and is a dominant grass in various prairie and grassland ecosystems in the Great Plains. In Alberta it is codominant with rough fescue on the grasslands. In other areas it may be codominant with little bluestem. It may be a pioneer species or a climax species, occurring in all stages of ecological succession. It thrives on poor soils and it can invade disturbed habitat such as gopher mounds.
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The date and method of observation matter as much as the stated conclusion, especially where classification or consensus has changed. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 29, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q3134721. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Hesperostipa spartea” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.