The green links below add additional plants to the comparison table. Blue links lead to other Web sites.
enable glossary links

barren fescue, barren vulpia, brome fescue, brome six-weeks grass, desert fescue, rattail fescue

Culms

5-50 cm, solitary or loosely tufted, erect or decumbent, smooth, scabridulous, or puberulent, unbranched distally.

Sheaths

glabrous or puberulent;

ligules to 0.5(1) mm;

blades usually 2-10 cm long, 0.5-2.5 mm wide, rolled or flat, glabrous or puberulent.

Panicles

1.5-15 cm long, 0.5-3 cm wide, conspicuously exserted, with 1 branch per node;

branches usually appressed to erect at maturity, without axillary pulvini;

pedicels flattened, sometimes clavate distally.

Spikelets

5-10 mm, with 4-8 florets, not closely imbricate;

rachilla internodes 0.6-1.1 mm.

Lower glumes

3.5-5 mm, 1/2 - 4/5 the length of the upper glumes;

upper glumes 4.5-9.5 mm, midveins scabrous distally;

lemmas 4-8 mm, 5-veined, scabrous distally, apices entire, awns of the lowermost lemma in each spikelet 2-13 mm;

paleas 4-6.3 mm, equaling or shorter than the lemmas, minutely bifid;

anthers 0.4-0.6(1.5) mm.

Caryopses

3.5-5 mm.

2n

= 14.

Vulpia bromoides

Distribution
from FNA
AL; AR; AZ; CA; DE; FL; GA; ID; IL; KY; LA; MA; ME; MO; MT; NC; NM; NV; NY; OH; OK; OR; SC; TN; TX; UT; VA; WA; HI; PR; BC; NT
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Vulpia bromoides is a common European species that grows in wet to dry, open habitats. It is adventive and naturalized in North and South America. In North America, it is most common on the west coast, where it grows from British Columbia to northern Baja California; it occurs sparingly in other regions.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)

Source FNA vol. 24, p. 452.
Parent taxa Poaceae > subfam. Pooideae > tribe Poeae > Vulpia
Sibling taxa
V. ciliata, V. microstachys, V. myuros, V. octoflora, V. sciurea
Synonyms V. deteonensis, Festuca dertonensis, Festuca brotnoides
Name authority (L.) Gray
Web links