| Home |
| Introduction |
| Table of Contents |
| Acknowledgements |
| References |
| Weed Classification |
| Photography Credits |
| Grasses |
|---|
| Arabiangrass |
| Buffelgrass |
| Cheatgrass |
| Crimson fountaingrass |
| Field sandbur |
| Giant reed |
| Japanese brome |
| Johnsongrass |
| Jointed goatgrass |
| Lehmann lovegrass |
| Mediterranean grass |
| Quackgrass |
| Ravennagrass |
| Red brome |
| Rescuegrass |
| Ripgut brome |
| Southern sandbur |
| Tall fescue |
| Uruguayan pomps grass |
| Weeping lovegrass |
| Wild oat |
| Ripgut Brome Bromus diandrus Roth (Grass family, Poaceae) |
Description
Ripgut brome is a loosely cespitose or tufted annual cool-season bunchgrass. It produces dense, low, leafy growth in the fall. It does not have creeping stolons or rhizomes; however, it has an extensive fibrous root system and tillers profusely.
Plants: Culms 7-7/8 to 35-3/8 inches tall, erect or decumbent, puberulent below the panicle; leaf sheaths softly pilose, often with retrorse or spreading hairs; auricles absent; ligules less than 1/8 inch long, obtuse, lacerate or erose; blades 1-3/8 to 14-3/4 inches long, less than 3/8 inches wide, both surfaces pilose.
Inflorescence/Spikelet/Floret: Flowers April to June; inflorescence is a panicle, 5-1/8 to 14-3/4 inches long, 3/8 to 4-3/4 inches wide, erect to spreading; panicle branches 3/8 to 2-3/4 inches long, stiffly erect to ascending or spreading, with 1 or 2 spikelets; spikelets 1 to 2-3/4 inches long, sides parallel or diverging from the center, moderately laterally compressed, with 4 to 11 florets per spikelet; glumes smooth or scabrous, margins hyaline, lower 3/4 to 1-3/8 inches long, 1 to 3 nerves, upper 3/4 to 1-3/8 inches long, 3 to 5 nerves; lemmas 3/4 to 1-3/8 inches long, linear-lanceolate, scabrous, 7 nerved, rounded over the mid-nerve, margins hyaline, apices bifid, acuminate, teeth less than 3/16 inch long; awns 1-3/16 to 2-9/16 inches long, straight, arising less than 1/16 inch below the lemma apices.
Habitat
Cultivated and disturbed or degraded sites in desert and semidesert grassland communities, and roadsides within elevations that generally range from 3,200 to 4,600 feet.
Propagation/Phenology
Reproduces by seed.
Comments
Native to southern and western Europe; the common name “ripgut brome” suggests possible damage to animals if they consume the sharp, long-awned florets of this species. Ripgut brome may suppress the growth of native plants. Bromes are known to cause hay fever and asthma. Ripgut brome has poor forage quality. This species generally occurs as a weed in wildland areas of the Southwestern Region rather than as an invasive plant.
