Bromus richardsonii

Richardson's brome, Richardson's Brome

Family: Poaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Richardson's brome is a California native perennial grass found in central Sierra Nevada, southern Coast Ranges, San Bernardino Mountains, eastern Peninsular Ranges, and eastern Mojave Desert in meadows and open woodlands at elevations of 1,200 to 3,600 meters. Flowering from July to September, this grass produces pale green to tan spikelets 24 to 35 millimeters long in open branching clusters. Growing with tall stems 47 to 110 centimeters high, it develops erect to nodding branches with distinctively hairy lemmas. Its leaf blades are 3 to 9 millimeters wide, with basal leaf sheaths densely short- to medium-hairy while upper stem nodes remain generally glabrous. The plant's spikelets feature lemmas with margins hairy along the lower half to three-quarters and sporting short awns 3 to 6 millimeters long.

Habitat: Meadows, open woodland

Bloom period: Jul-Sep

Elevation: 1200-3600 m

Bioregions: c&amps SNH, SCoRO, SnBr, e PR, e DMoj

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