''Bromus racemosus'', the smooth brome or bald brome, is a species of flowering plant in the family Poaceae. It is native to subarctic and temperate Eurasia, and widely introduced elsewhere, including North America, Iceland, the Southern Cone of South America, the Korean Peninsula, Australia, and New Zealand. It grows in alkaline meadows and in waste places.

Description

''Bromus racemosus'' is an annual grass growing tall. Its smooth culms are wide at their base. Its brown nodes are minutely to densely pubescent, with these soft and wavy hairs growing up to long. Its membranous and glabrous ligules are long. Its leaf blades are long and wide; the adaxial surface of the blade is densely covered by stiff hairs growing up to long, and the abaxial surface is densely covered with stiff hairs which are typically shorter, growing up to . The margins of the blades are smooth or serrulate. Its panicles are long and wide, with erect to ascending branches which range between scabrous and pubescent. Each branch has a single

spikelet A spikelet, in botany, describes the typical arrangement of the flowers of grasses, sedges and some other Monocots. Each spikelet has one or more florets. The spikelets are further grouped into panicles or spikes. The part of the spikelet that ...

, with the lowest

inflorescence An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a Plant stem, stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphology (biology), Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of sperma ...

node having one to four branches. The ovate-lanceolate spikelets are long, with the rachilla occasionally visible at maturity. The spikelets have six to nine florets. Its

glume In botany, a glume is a bract (leaf-like structure) below a spikelet in the inflorescence (flower cluster) of grasses (Poaceae) or the flowers of sedges (Cyperaceae). There are two other types of bracts in the spikelets of grasses: the lemma and ...

s are smooth or scabrous, with lower glumes long and upper glumes long. The lower glumes have three to five nerves, upper glumes have seven to nine nerves, and lemmas have seven to nine nerves. Its lemmas are long, and its awns are long.

Habitat and distribution

In its native Europe, ''Bromus racemosus'' occurs in moist meadows and grasslands, though it is threatened by changes in agricultural grassland management. In its introduced habitat in North America, ''B. racemosus'' occurs in waste places, fields, roadsides, and gravelly hills in scattered locations throughout the United States and Canada. In South America, the grass occurs in the southern

Andes The Andes, Andes Mountains or Andean Mountains (; ) are the longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range is long, wide (widest between 18°S – 20°S ...

of Argentina and Chile.

References

racemosus Flora of the Azores Flora of Europe Flora of the East Aegean Islands Flora of Turkey Flora of the Caucasus Flora of Iran Flora of Afghanistan Flora of East Himalaya Flora of Central Asia Flora of Xinjiang Flora of Tibet Flora of Qinghai Flora of North-Central China Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus Plants described in 1762 {{Pooideae-stub