Bromus laevipes

Chinook brome, woodland brome, Woodland Brome

Family: Poaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Chinook brome is a California native perennial grass found in northwestern California, Cascade Range, Sierra Nevada, Sutter Buttes, central western California, southern California coastal areas, Channel Islands, western Transverse Ranges, and Peninsular Ranges in shrubland, conifer forest, and shaded streambank habitats at elevations below 2,500 meters. Flowering from May to July, this grass produces open branching flower clusters with nodding to spreading branches up to 27 centimeters long. Growing 50 to 160 centimeters tall with an upright habit, it develops slender green stems with a distinctive spreading inflorescence. Its leaves are glabrous with narrow blades 3 to 7 millimeters wide and ligules 2 to 4 millimeters long. The grass produces delicate spikelets 23 to 35 millimeters long with hairy lemmas and short awns 3 to 6.5 millimeters in length.

Habitat: shrubland, conifer forest, shaded streambanks, roadsides

Bloom period: May-Jul

Elevation: < 2500 m

Bioregions: NW, CaR, SN, ScV (Sutter Buttes), CW, SCo, ChI, WTR, PR

California counties: Butte, Fresno, Humboldt, Lake, Madera, Marin, Mendocino, Monterey, Placer, San Luis Obispo, San Mateo, Santa Barbara, Solano, Sonoma, Tehama, Trinity, Contra Costa, Inyo, Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, Santa Clara, Sierra, Tuolumne, Tulare, Riverside, Napa, Colusa, Santa Cruz, Calaveras, Amador, Siskiyou, Shasta, Plumas, Glenn, El Dorado, Alameda, Mariposa, Nevada, Sacramento, Yuba, Sutter, Yolo, Mono, Ventura, San Benito, Kern, Del Norte

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.