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Native plants recorded in your state and county

Native plants · Texas

Native plants of King County

31 plant species are recorded as native to Texas in Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants and USDA PLANTS, and recorded in King County by USDA PLANTS. 13 of them have growing records you can filter by light, moisture, height and estimated cold hardiness.

County summary · USDA PLANTS and Kew WCVP

King County, Texas

PLANTS records only 13 garden-ready natives here (under 30). County records are thin in some places; the Texas list is a useful second check.

Native species
31 Typical Texas county: 145 (median of 254 counties)
Garden-ready natives
13 Typical Texas county: 61
Share by type (all 31 native species)
Percent of the 31 native species in each growth type
Tree 16% (5)
Shrub 6% (2)
Wildflower (forb) 52% (16)
Grass or grass-like 26% (8)

Wildflowers make up the largest share of the native list (52%), followed by grasses and grass-like plants (26%).

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 8a (2023 map).

The native plant list

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

Garden-ready natives 13

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

Garden-ready native plants of King County, Texas
PlantType HeightLight Water useHardy to
black willow Salix nigra Tree 100 ft Sun High Zone 1b
Canada wildrye Elymus canadensis Grass or grass-like 3 ft Shade-tolerant Medium Zone 3a
Canadian horseweed Conyza canadensis Wildflower (forb) 5 ft Sun Medium Zone 12b
Chickasaw plum Prunus angustifolia Tree 12 ft Sun Medium Zone 4b
cosmopolitan bulrush Bolboschoenus maritimus Grass or grass-like 3.2 ft Sun Medium Zone 5a
eastern cottonwood Populus deltoides Tree 190 ft Sun High Zone 3a
fourwing saltbush Atriplex canescens Shrub 4 ft Sun Medium Zone 3a
honey mesquite Prosopis glandulosa Tree 50 ft Sun Low Zone 6a
Illinois bundleflower Desmanthus illinoensis Wildflower (forb) 3 ft Sun Medium Zone 5b
little bluestem Schizachyrium scoparium Grass or grass-like 3 ft Sun Low Zone 3b
purple threeawn Aristida purpurea Grass or grass-like 1.4 ft Sun Low Zone 4a
sideoats grama Bouteloua curtipendula Grass or grass-like 3 ft Sun Medium Zone 3a
sugarberry Celtis laevigata Tree 80 ft Shade-tolerant High Zone 5a

Other native species recorded here 18

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.

  • annual buckwheat Eriogonum annuum
  • camphorweed Heterotheca subaxillaris
  • chickenthief Mentzelia oligosperma
  • Cuman ragweed Ambrosia psilostachya
  • mat sandbur Cenchrus longispinus
  • pitseed goosefoot Chenopodium berlandieri
  • sand sagebrush Artemisia filifolia
  • sandhill amaranth Amaranthus arenicola
  • silverleaf nightshade Solanum elaeagnifolium
  • snow on the mountain Euphorbia marginata
  • southern annual saltmarsh aster Symphyotrichum divaricatum
  • Spanish gold Grindelia papposa
  • Texas croton Croton texensis
  • tumble windmill grass Chloris verticillata
  • tumblegrass Schedonnardus paniculatus
  • velvetweed Oenothera curtiflora
  • whitest evening primrose Oenothera albicaulis
  • woolly tidestromia Tidestromia lanuginosa

Compared with Texas

The typical county is the median of the 254 Texas 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, King County and Texas
MeasureKing CountyTypical countyStatewide
Native species 31 145 1,683
Garden-ready natives 13 61 656
Tree 5 — 164
Shrub 2 — 90
Wildflower (forb) 16 — 877
Grass or grass-like 8 — 431
Vine 0 — 83
Fern 0 — 38

Neighboring counties

Counties that share a ZIP code with King 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
King County (county FIPS 48269), Texas. 31 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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