''Brachypodium sylvaticum'', commonly known as false-brome, slender false brome or wood false brome, is a

perennial In horticulture, the term perennial ('' per-'' + '' -ennial'', "through the year") is used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annuals and biennials. It has thus been defined as a plant that lives more than 2 years. The term is also ...

grass Poaceae ( ), also called Gramineae ( ), is a large and nearly ubiquitous family (biology), family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos, the grasses of natural grassland and spe ...

native to Europe,

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

and

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

. Its native range includes most of Europe, northwestern Africa, Sudan and Eritrea, Western and Central Asia, the Indian subcontinent, China, Korea, Japan,

Malesia Malesia is a biogeographical region straddling the Equator and the boundaries of the Indomalayan and Australasian realms. It is a phytogeographical floristic region in the Paleotropical kingdom. It was first recognized as a distinct region ...

, and

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; , fossilized , also known as Papua or historically ) is the List of islands by area, world's second-largest island, with an area of . Located in Melanesia in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is ...

. The

bunchgrass Tussock grasses or bunch grasses are a group of grass species in the family Poaceae. They usually grow as singular plants in clumps, tufts, hummocks, or bunches, rather than forming a sod or lawn, in meadows, grasslands, and prairies. As perennia ...

is most commonly found in forests and woodlands, preferring the shaded canopy, but may grow in open areas. It prefers well drained neutral and calcerous soils, and avoids wet conditions.

Description

''Brachypodium sylvaticum'' is a tall tufted perennial bunchgrass that grows up to about a high. The drooping leaf blade of the plant is dark green, or bright-yellow green, flat and up to 12 mm wide with a fringe of hairs surrounding the edge of the leaf. The leaves do not have auricles. The leaf blade is joined to the hollow culm by the leaf sheath. This hairy sheath is open and surrounds the culm. The culm is pilose (long, soft, hairy), and typically has 4 to 5 nodes. The

ligule A ligule (from "strap", variant of ''lingula'', from ''lingua'' "tongue") is a thin outgrowth at the junction of leaf A leaf (: leaves) is a principal appendage of the plant stem, stem of a vascular plant, usually borne laterally above g ...

s are blunt, long. The grass has drooping narrow long spikelets of flowers on very short pedicels. The flower head is long, the plant flowering in July and August. Its awns are straight and long, projecting out of the end of the spikelets.

Subspecies

Two subspecies are accepted. *''Brachypodium sylvaticum'' subsp. ''creticum'' –

Crete Crete ( ; , Modern Greek, Modern: , Ancient Greek, Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the List of islands by area, 88th largest island in the world and the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, fifth la ...

*''Brachypodium sylvaticum'' subsp. ''sylvaticum'' – Eurasia, northern Africa, and New Guinea

Wildlife value

Its seeds can be dispersed by wildlife and humans. The

caterpillar Caterpillars ( ) are the larval stage of members of the order Lepidoptera (the insect order comprising butterflies and moths). As with most common names, the application of the word is arbitrary, since the larvae of sawflies (suborder ...

s of some

Lepidoptera Lepidoptera ( ) or lepidopterans is an order (biology), order of winged insects which includes butterflies and moths. About 180,000 species of the Lepidoptera have been described, representing 10% of the total described species of living organ ...

use it as a foodplant, e.g. the chequered skipper (''Carterocephalus palaemon'') and the Essex skipper (''Thymelicus lineola'').

Invasive species in North America

The grass is an

introduced species An introduced species, alien species, exotic species, adventive species, immigrant species, foreign species, non-indigenous species, or non-native species is a species living outside its native distributional range, but which has arrived ther ...

in North America. ''Brachypodium sylvaticum'' is an

invasive species An invasive species is an introduced species that harms its new environment. Invasive species adversely affect habitats and bioregions, causing ecological, environmental, and/or economic damage. The term can also be used for native spec ...

colonizing new areas and outcompeting

native plant In biogeography, a native species is indigenous to a given region or ecosystem if its presence in that region is the result of only local natural evolution (though often popularised as "with no human intervention") during history. The term is equi ...

s. As this species has spread to the

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (PNW; ) is a geographic region in Western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though no official boundary exists, the most common ...

of the U.S. it has demonstrated a capability of dominating forest understories and open

grassland A grassland is an area where the vegetation is dominance (ecology), dominated by grasses (Poaceae). However, sedge (Cyperaceae) and rush (Juncaceae) can also be found along with variable proportions of legumes such as clover, and other Herbaceo ...

s to the exclusion of all other flora found in those areas. Recent observations suggest that populations at the leading edge of the expanding range undergo an establishment phase before they can contribute to the local invasion, perhaps because newly colonized populations are suffering from inbreeding depression. ;Oregon ''Brachypodium sylvaticum'' is a newly invasive brome species in Oregon that is rapidly expanding in the

. Although ''B. sylvaticum'' appears to be in the early phases of invasion in North America, it has become a

noxious weed A noxious weed, harmful weed or injurious weed is a weed that has been designated by an agricultural or other governing authority as a plant that is harmful to agricultural or horticultural crops, natural habitats or ecosystems, or humans or lives ...

throughout the Willamette Valley area of Oregon since the late 1980s. It is most likely that ''B. sylvaticum'' was first introduced to Oregon in range experiments when accessions from the native range were planted near Eugene and Corvallis in the Willamette Valley using seed obtained from the USDA Office of Foreign Seed and Plant Introduction anywhere between 70 and 80 years ago.Cruzan, M. B. 2019. How to make a weed - the saga of the slender false brome invasion in the North American west and lessons for the future. Bioscience 69:469-507. (http://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biz051)

Gallery

File: False brome 2.JPG, seedling

References

External links

Flora of Northern Ireland: ''Brachypodium sylvaticum''
* *Johnson J
Identifying ''Brachypodium sylvaticum'' (slender false brome)
San Francisco Watershed Council, January 2004.
False-brome page
from the Alaska Natural Heritage Program.
False Brome Working Group, Institute for Applied Ecology
{{Taxonbar, from=Q1188694 sylvaticum Bunchgrasses of Europe Bunchgrasses of Africa Bunchgrasses of Asia Brachypodium sylvaticum Brachypodium sylvaticum Plants described in 1762 Taxa named by William Hudson (botanist)