Soft Brome - introduced (*Bromus hordeaceus)

Native to Europe and western Asia. Annual. C3.

Family. Poaceae (Grass family).

Identification:

• it is a medium sized grass, usually to less than 50cm high
• the flower clusters are contracted
• the glumes are shorter than the lemmas and so are much shorter than the spikelets
• the spikelets are many flowered, typically about 10
• the leaves are flat
• the ligules to 3mm long, blunt, sometimes finely toothed, and hairless or hairy.
• the hairy lemmas and the slender awns (on the lemmas) give the grass a soft appearanc
• the leaves have long hairs
• the lemmas have two small lobes (c 1mm) at the tip.

Soft Brome is a very common weed, usually growing with other weeds in disturbed places. It is an environmental weed.

Bromus: a kind of oat; hordeaceus: resembling barley.

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