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Native plants · Iowa

Native plants of Clarke County

34 plant species are recorded as native to Iowa in Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants and USDA PLANTS, and recorded in Clarke County by USDA PLANTS. 24 of them have growing records you can filter by light, moisture, height and estimated cold hardiness.

County summary · USDA PLANTS and Kew WCVP

Clarke County, Iowa

PLANTS records only 24 garden-ready natives here (under 30). County records are thin in some places; the Iowa list is a useful second check.

Native species
34 Typical Iowa county: 44 (median of 99 counties)
Garden-ready natives
24 Typical Iowa county: 24
Share by type (all 34 native species)
Percent of the 34 native species in each growth type
Shrub 3% (1)
Wildflower (forb) 18% (6)
Grass or grass-like 76% (26)
Fern 3% (1)

Grasses and grass-like plants make up the largest share of the native list (76%), followed by wildflowers (18%).

Recorded native ranges can include long-established populations that spread from gardens; check your state’s native plant society list for local guidance. How native status is decided.

ZIP codes mainly in this county fall in USDA hardiness zone 5b (2023 map).

The native plant list

Cold hardiness is estimated from each plant’s PLANTS minimum temperature. How we estimate it.

Garden-ready natives 24

Native species with PLANTS growing records (height, light, moisture, minimum temperature). “—” means PLANTS has no value.

Garden-ready native plants of Clarke County, Iowa
PlantType HeightLight Water useHardy to
big bluestem Andropogon gerardii Grass or grass-like 6 ft Sun Low Zone 2b
bluejoint Calamagrostis canadensis Grass or grass-like 4.9 ft Sun Medium Zone 4a
Carolina foxtail Alopecurus carolinianus Grass or grass-like 1.7 ft Sun Low Zone 3a
common cowparsnip Heracleum maximum Wildflower (forb) 8 ft Sun High Zone 3b
composite dropseed Sporobolus compositus Grass or grass-like 3 ft Sun Low Zone 3b
eastern gamagrass Tripsacum dactyloides Grass or grass-like 5 ft Sun High Zone 5a
fall panicgrass Panicum dichotomiflorum Grass or grass-like 3.3 ft Sun High Zone 3a
Indiangrass Sorghastrum nutans Grass or grass-like 6 ft Sun Medium Zone 3b
little barley Hordeum pusillum Grass or grass-like 1.2 ft Sun Medium Zone 10b
little bluestem Schizachyrium scoparium Grass or grass-like 3 ft Sun Low Zone 3b
Malabar sprangletop Leptochloa fusca Grass or grass-like 3.3 ft Sun High Zone 3a
marsh muhly Muhlenbergia racemosa Grass or grass-like 3 ft Shade-tolerant Medium Zone 3b
nodding beggartick Bidens cernua Wildflower (forb) 3.2 ft Sun–part shade High Zone 12a
nodding fescue Festuca subverticillata Grass or grass-like 3 ft Sun–part shade Medium Zone 3a
porcupinegrass Hesperostipa spartea Grass or grass-like 4 ft Sun Medium Zone 3b
prairie wedgescale Sphenopholis obtusata Grass or grass-like 3.2 ft Sun–part shade Medium Zone 3a
prairie willow Salix humilis Shrub 10 ft Sun–part shade High Zone 3a
purple lovegrass Eragrostis spectabilis Grass or grass-like 11 in Sun Low Zone 3a
sideoats grama Bouteloua curtipendula Grass or grass-like 3 ft Sun Medium Zone 3a
smooth horsetail Equisetum laevigatum Fern 5 ft Sun Low Zone 3b
sweet woodreed Cinna arundinacea Grass or grass-like 4.9 ft Shade-tolerant Low Zone 4a
switchgrass Panicum virgatum Grass or grass-like 5 ft Sun Medium Zone 3a
teal lovegrass Eragrostis hypnoides Grass or grass-like 4 in Sun High Zone 3b
western wheatgrass Pascopyrum smithii Grass or grass-like 2 ft Sun Medium Zone 3a

Other native species recorded here 10

PLANTS has no growing records for these, so light, moisture, height and zone filters cannot include them. Many are wild species seldom sold by nurseries.

  • downy phlox Phlox pilosa
  • Macoun's barley ×Elyhordeum macounii
  • Nuttall's prairie parsley Polytaenia nuttallii
  • poverty dropseed Sporobolus vaginiflorus
  • prairie threeawn Aristida oligantha
  • puffsheath dropseed Sporobolus neglectus
  • purple milkweed Asclepias purpurascens
  • rough barnyardgrass Echinochloa muricata
  • skyblue aster Symphyotrichum oolentangiense
  • slimleaf panicgrass Dichanthelium linearifolium

Compared with Iowa

The typical county is the median of the 99 Iowa counties with PLANTS county records; the statewide figure counts every species native anywhere in the state. More species is not better or worse: counties differ in size, habitat and how thoroughly they have been surveyed.

Native species counts, Clarke County and Iowa
MeasureClarke CountyTypical countyStatewide
Native species 34 44 1,374
Garden-ready natives 24 24 496
Tree 0 — 110
Shrub 1 — 72
Wildflower (forb) 6 — 779
Grass or grass-like 26 — 298
Vine 0 — 55
Fern 1 — 60

Neighboring counties

Counties that share a ZIP code with Clarke County.

Look up another ZIP

Matches your ZIP to the county it mostly lies in, then lists the plants recorded as native to your state (Kew’s World Checklist and USDA PLANTS) and recorded in that county by USDA PLANTS.

Source & data date

Source
USDA NRCS PLANTS Database: county distribution records, native status and plant characteristics. CC0 (public domain dedication, per the data.gov catalog record).
Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP): native or introduced status by state. CC BY 3.0.
USGS US-RIIS (ver. 2.0): species listed as introduced are excluded. CC0.
Citation
USDA, NRCS. 2026. The PLANTS Database (https://plants.usda.gov, 11/04/2026). National Plant Data Team, Greensboro, NC USA.
Govaerts R. (ed.) (2026). WCVP: World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Facilitated by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Data file dated 2026-06-04, http://sftp.kew.org/pub/data-repositories/WCVP/ (retrieved 2026-11-04). Paper: Govaerts R. et al. (2021) The World Checklist of Vascular Plants, a continuously updated resource for exploring global plant diversity. Scientific Data 8, 215.
Data date
Retrieved from PLANTS on November 4, 2026; WCVP data file dated June 4, 2026.
Zones
USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map (2023) ZIP table: PRISM Group, Oregon State University, https://prism.oregonstate.edu, accessed November 3, 2026. Plant zones on this site are our estimate, not the official map.
Scope
Clarke County (county FIPS 19039), Iowa. 34 native species from PLANTS county distribution records; garden-ready = species with a PLANTS characteristics record.
Method
A species is listed when it is recorded as native to the state in Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants and USDA PLANTS, and recorded in the county by USDA PLANTS. Species PLANTS labels both native and introduced are listed separately. Full method · All sources

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