Wyoming
What is Cheatgrass?*
Tribe:
Species:
Common Name:
Life Span:
Origin:
Season:
POEAE
Bromos tectorum L.
Downy brome (cheatgrass, broncograss
Annual
Introduced (from Europe)
Cool
Inflorescence Characteristics:
- type: panicle (5-15 cm long), dense, drooping, often purplish, branches and pedicels slender, flexuous
- spikelets: 5- to 8-flowered (1.2-2 cm long, 3-6 mm wide excluding awns), glabrous to hirsute; margins thin, membranous; apical teeth slender (2-3 mm long)
- awns: lemma awned (1.2-1.8 cm long), straight to bent
- glumes: unequal, first glume (4-6 mm long), 1-nerved; second glume (8-10 mm long), 3-nerved, glabrous to hirsute; margins broad, hyaline
Vegetative Characteristics:
- growth habit: cespitose or solitary
- culms: erect or decumbent at base (25-60 cm tall), weak
- sheaths: round, keeled toward collar, softly pubescent, margins connate
- blades: flat (5-12 cm long, 3-7 mm wide), glabrous to hispid
- ligules: membranous (2-3 mm long), acute, erose to lacerate
Growth Characteristics:
seeds germinate in the late fall or early spring, rapid spring growth, seeds mature about 2 months later, reproduces from seeds; an aggressive weed
Livestock Losses:
awns may injure eyes and mouths of grazing animals and contaminate fleece
Forage Value:
fair to good for livestock before the inflorescence emerges, then is practically worthless; deer and pronghorn graze it in the spring while it is actively growing; furnishes food for some upland birds and rodents
Habitat:
heavily grazed rangeland, roadsides, waste places, and disturbed sites; adapted to a broad range of soil textures, most abundant on dry sites
* Reproduced from NORTH AMERICAN RANGE PLANTS by James Stubbendieck, Stephan L. Hatch, and Charles H. Butterfield, illustrated by Bellamy Parks Jansen, by permission of the University of Nebraska Press. c 1981, 1982, 1986, 1992, 1997 by the University of Nebraska Press.
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Tribe: | POEAE Bromos tectorum L. Downy brome (cheatgrass, broncograss Annual Introduced (from Europe) Cool |
Inflorescence Characteristics:
- type: panicle (5-15 cm long), dense, drooping, often purplish, branches and pedicels slender, flexuous
- spikelets: 5- to 8-flowered (1.2-2 cm long, 3-6 mm wide excluding awns), glabrous to hirsute; margins thin, membranous; apical teeth slender (2-3 mm long)
- awns: lemma awned (1.2-1.8 cm long), straight to bent
- glumes: unequal, first glume (4-6 mm long), 1-nerved; second glume (8-10 mm long), 3-nerved, glabrous to hirsute; margins broad, hyaline
Vegetative Characteristics:
- growth habit: cespitose or solitary
- culms: erect or decumbent at base (25-60 cm tall), weak
- sheaths: round, keeled toward collar, softly pubescent, margins connate
- blades: flat (5-12 cm long, 3-7 mm wide), glabrous to hispid
- ligules: membranous (2-3 mm long), acute, erose to lacerate
Growth Characteristics:
seeds germinate in the late fall or early spring, rapid spring growth, seeds mature about 2 months later, reproduces from seeds; an aggressive weed
Livestock Losses:
awns may injure eyes and mouths of grazing animals and contaminate fleece
Forage Value:
fair to good for livestock before the inflorescence emerges, then is practically worthless; deer and pronghorn graze it in the spring while it is actively growing; furnishes food for some upland birds and rodents
Habitat:
heavily grazed rangeland, roadsides, waste places, and disturbed sites; adapted to a broad range of soil textures, most abundant on dry sites
* Reproduced from NORTH AMERICAN RANGE PLANTS by James Stubbendieck, Stephan L. Hatch, and Charles H. Butterfield, illustrated by Bellamy Parks Jansen, by permission of the University of Nebraska Press. c 1981, 1982, 1986, 1992, 1997 by the University of Nebraska Press.
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