Bromus porteri

Nodding brome

Family: Poaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Nodding brome is a California native perennial found in the southern Sierra Nevada, Santa Clara River Valley, southern Sierra foothills, and Sonoran Mojave transition zones on exposed slopes and open woodland at elevations of 550 to 3,500 meters. Flowering from July to August, this grass produces delicate nodding flower branches with open, loose inflorescences 6 to 20 centimeters long. Growing 32 to 100 centimeters tall with ascending to drooping branches, it has distinctive grass stems with narrow leaves 2 to 5 millimeters wide. Its leaf blades are glabrous or slightly hairy, with short ligules 1 to 2 millimeters long, and each spikelet features hairy glumes 12 to 15 millimeters in length. The lemmas are softly hairy with short awns 1.5 to 3 millimeters long, giving the grass a delicate, nodding appearance.

Habitat: Exposed slopes, open woodland

Bloom period: Jul-Aug

Elevation: 550-3500 m

Bioregions: NCoRI, s SN, SCoRI, SnBr, SNE

California counties: Tulare, San Bernardino, Orange, Inyo, Mono, Napa, Tehama, Kern, Fresno, Ventura, Tuolumne, Plumas, Sierra, Placer

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