Ripgut Brome Awns

It does not have creeping stolons or rhizomes.

Ripgut brome awns.

1st glume is 1 veined. Soft hairs cover the leaf blades and sheaths. Description ripgut brome is a loosely cespitose or tufted annual cool season bunchgrass. It is considered a serious weed of crops in some areas.

The individual flowers have tiny rough teeth that can injure livestock and pets. Within new england it has been collected only near seaports in massachusetts. The seeds of the plant can penetrate the skin of livestock and the callus and awns can penetrate the mouth eyes and intestines of livestock. Ripgut brome reproduces by seed.

Ripgut brome has no auricles. Soft brome bromus hordeaceus. The spikelets have longer awns than most brome grasses. Cheatgrass bromus tectorum exotic undesirable and state regulated seedlings have very hairy blades and sheaths.

It produces dense low leafy growth in the fall. The open panicles resemble oats with long often compressed spikelets containing 1 2 inch long awns. Ripgut brome bromus diandrus exotic and undesirable lemmas taper into 2 narrow teeth. Large spikelets with needlelike awns 1 to 2 inches 2 5 5 cm long distinguishes ripgut brome from the much shorter awns of soft brome.

The ligule is long whitish and has a jagged tip. However it has an extensive fibrous root system and tillers profusely. The common name ripgut brome refers to the heavy sclerotization of the species creating a hazard to livestock. Ripgut brome is an annual brome native to europe northern africa and western asia and very widely introduced elsewhere in the world including in north america.