About

Bouteloua dactyloides, commonly known as buffalograss or buffalo grass, is a North American prairie grass native to Canada, Mexico, and the United States. It is a short grass found mainly on the High Plains and is co-dominant with blue grama (B. gracilis) over most of the shortgrass prairie. Buffalo grass in North America is not the same species of grass commonly known as buffalo in Australia.

Buffalograss is valued both as a forage species to feed domesticated animals and as a landscaping plant used in low water lawns and xeriscaping. Because its plants tend to have a single sex, many cultivars without pollen have been produced for use in lawns. It recovers quickly from grazing and from drought due to its ability to vegetatively reproduce itself by means of runners.

Where it grows

Buffalograss is native to the shortgrass of North America from Canada to Mexico. In Canada it is found in the provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan. In the United States it is primarily found in the great plains mostly west of the Mississippi from Minnesota and Montana in the north to New Mexico and Louisiana in the south. East of the Mississippi it is also found in Illinois, and in one county in Virginia and Georgia. Though it is found in Wisconsin, POWO lists it as an introduced species in that state. Similarly, NatureServe lists it as an introduced species in Virginia. Though the World Plants database lists it as native there. West of the Rocky Mountains it is also found in Arizona and in one county in both Utah and Nevada. It is found through much of Northern Mexico from Sonora in the west to Tamaulipas in the east and south to Morelos and Veracruz, though the species is not found on the west coast south of Sonora.

Other Bouteloua plants

Sprucetop grama · Sideoats grama · Santa Rita Mountain grama · Black grama · Blue grama · Hairy grama · Parry's grama · Purple grama · Slender grama · Matted grama