Bromus secalinus

Rye brome, Rye Brome

Family: Poaceae · Type: annual · Not Native

Rye brome is a naturalized annual grass found in northwestern California, the California Cascades, northern Sierra Nevada, northern San Francisco Bay Area, San Bernardino Mountains, and Modoc Plateau in open, disturbed areas at elevations below 1,500 meters. Flowering from May to July, this grass produces delicate, spreading inflorescences 8 to 17 centimeters long with nodding branches that become increasingly visible as the spikelets mature. Growing 45 to 100 centimeters tall with ascending stems, it develops open, spreading seed clusters that widen as the fruits develop. Its leaves are 4 to 12 millimeters wide, covered in soft hairs, with glabrous or lightly hairy leaf sheaths. The spikelets measure 12 to 24 millimeters long, with glabrous glumes and lemmas that may be smooth or slightly hairy, occasionally featuring awns up to 9.5 millimeters long.

Habitat: Open, disturbed areas

Bloom period: May-Jul

Elevation: < 1500 m

Bioregions: NW, CaR, n&ampc SN, n SnFrB, SnBr, MP

California counties: San Bernardino, El Dorado, Lake, Los Angeles, Shasta, Lassen, Tuolumne, Sierra, Plumas, Nevada, Butte, Siskiyou, Humboldt, Mariposa, Fresno, Mendocino, Marin, Modoc, Sonoma, Monterey, Del Norte, Placer

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