Bromus sterilis

Poverty brome

Family: Poaceae · Type: annual · Not Native

Poverty brome is a naturalized annual grass found in northwestern California, the Cascade Range foothills, Sierra Nevada, Central Valley, San Francisco Bay Area, southern Coast Ranges, southern Channel Islands, southern California coast, western Transverse Ranges, and Peninsular Ranges at elevations below 1,100 meters in open, disturbed areas. Flowering from March to June, this grass produces pale green to light brown spikelets 20 to 35 millimeters long in loose, open branching clusters. Growing 25 to 85 centimeters tall with ascending to nodding branches, it has hairy leaf sheaths and blades 2 to 5 millimeters wide. Its lemmas have straight awns 15 to 30 millimeters long and 1 to 3 millimeter teeth, giving the spikelets a distinctively delicate and slightly bristly appearance. The plant is particularly adaptable to disturbed landscapes, spreading readily in open ground with its prolific seed production.

Habitat: Open, disturbed areas

Bloom period: Mar-Jun

Elevation: < 1100 m

Bioregions: NW, CaRF, SNF, n SNH, GV, SnFrB, SCoRO, s ChI, SCo, WTR (w Santa Susana foothills), PR (Otay Mtn)

California counties: San Diego, Kern, Alameda, Calaveras, El Dorado, Humboldt, Los Angeles, Mariposa, Monterey, Orange, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Yolo, Napa, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Francisco, Shasta, Ventura, Mendocino, Yuba, Nevada, Amador, Tuolumne, Stanislaus, Sutter, Siskiyou, Sierra, Santa Cruz, Plumas, Marin, Lake, Del Norte, Butte, Placer, Sonoma, Solano, Madera, Contra Costa, Tehama, Glenn, Trinity, Fresno, Lassen, San Mateo, Alpine, Santa Clara, Sacramento, San Benito

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