Bromus sitchensis var. polyanthus

Great basin brome, colorado brome

Family: Poaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Great basin brome is a California native perennial grass found in open habitats of the Great Basin region on open slopes and meadows at elevations of 1,200 to 3,100 meters. Flowering in August, this plant produces grass-like spikelets with pale green to straw-colored flowers in an open branching inflorescence 15 to 25 centimeters long. Growing 60 to 120 centimeters tall with erect to ascending stems, it forms a robust, clump-like bunch grass. Its leaf blades are distinctively wide, measuring 6 to 12 millimeters across, with smooth leaf sheaths and a ligule 2 to 2.5 millimeters long. The spikelets are large, measuring 30 to 35 millimeters, with delicate awned lemmas 12 to 15 millimeters in length.

Habitat: Open slopes, meadows

Bloom period: Aug

Elevation: 1200-3100 m

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