Bromus racemosus

Smooth brome

Family: Poaceae · Type: annual · Not Native

Smooth brome is a naturalized annual grass found in the Klamath Ranges, northern California Coast Ranges, Sierra Nevada foothills, Central Valley, Central Coast, San Francisco Bay Area, and northern Channel Islands at elevations of 60 to 1,850 meters, commonly occurring in disturbed areas and along roadsides. Flowering from May to July, this grass produces small, narrow spikelets 11 to 18 millimeters long with green to tan coloration. Growing with tall stems 25 to 110 centimeters high, it features long-hairy lower leaf sheaths and narrow leaf blades 2 to 5 millimeters wide. Its lower leaves have ligules 1 to 3 millimeters long, with narrow inflorescences 4 to 14 centimeters in length bearing single spikelets on short branches. The grass produces lemmas with slender awns 5 to 9 millimeters long, characteristic of its distinctive grass structure.

Habitat: Disturbed areas, roadsides

Bloom period: May-Jul

Elevation: 60-1850 m

Bioregions: KR, NCoRO, NCoRI, SNF, GV, CCo, SnFrB, SnBr, MP

California counties: Sonoma, Mendocino, Orange, Tuolumne, Siskiyou, Shasta, Santa Cruz, San Mateo, San Francisco, San Diego, Plumas, Nevada, Mariposa, Lassen, Contra Costa, Butte, San Bernardino, Tehama, Yuba, Trinity, Stanislaus, Marin, Alameda, Modoc, Lake, Los Angeles, Humboldt, Calaveras, Fresno, Sierra, Placer, Sacramento, Solano, San Joaquin, Yolo

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