Alternate name: Downy Brome
Family: Poaceae, Grass view all from this family
Description An introduced annual grass bearing many finely hairy, drooping, yellowish-green, bristly spikelets in a loose, much-branched, terminal cluster.
Flowers: Enclosed in 3-8 scales mostly tipped with bristles 1/4-3/4" (5-18 mm) long; spikelets 3/4-1 1/2" (2-3.5 cm) long, on thread-like, flexible stalks mostly shorter than spikelets; cluster 2-10" (5-25 cm) long.
Leaves: Blades 6-15" (15-40 cm) long, 1/4-5/8" (5-16 mm) wide, finely hairy, rising from long-tubular, hairy sheaths surrounding stem.
Fruit: Small grain.
Height: 8-30" (20-76 cm).
Flower April-June, sporadically later in wet summers.
Habitat Roadsides, fields, pastures, and waste places.
Range Throughout North America, except Northwest Territories and Newfoundland.
Discussion This Eurasian grass was unintentionally introduced into North America in the mid-1800s and has spread rapidly over much of the continent except the far north. It is one of our common grasses of roadsides and waste places, sometimes lining roads and railways for long distances; in some areas, as in the sagebrush and range country of the western United States, it is considered a troublesome weed. The plants, sometimes with a purplish or reddish hue, eventually turn brown. At maturity the spikelets break apart; the sharp-pointed, bristly sections can injure grazing animals, working into the nose, ears, mouth, or eyes. Hikers call this grass sometimes unprintable names as they try to remove the shattered spikelets that cling tenaciously to their clothing. The species name means "of roofs," alluding to thatch, which is a habitat of the plant in Europe.
