Plants annual. Culms 30-70 cm, erect or ascending. Sheaths often densely hairy, with soft, white hairs; ligules 1-2 mm, hairy, obtuse, erose; blades 10-30 cm long, 3-5 mm wide,
glabrous or pubescent. Panicles 5-15
cm long, 2-9 cm wide, erect, densely contracted when immature, more open with
age; branches usually shorter than
the spikelets, rigid, ascending to slightly spreading, slightly curved or
straight. Spikelets 20-50 mm,
lanceolate, terete to moderately laterally compressed, often 2+ per node; florets 7-20, bases concealed at
maturity; rachilla internodes
concealed at maturity. Glumes
pilose; lower glumes 5-9 mm,
3-5-veined; upper glumes 8-12 mm,
5-7-veined; lemmas 11-20 mm long,
1.8-2.5 mm wide, lanceolate, pilose, obscurely 7-veined, rounded over the
midvein, margins rounded, not inrolled at maturity, apices acute, bifid, teeth shorter
than 1 mm; awns 6-12 mm, to 20 mm on
some distal lemmas, divaricate when mature, arising 1.5 mm or more below the
lemma apices; anthers 1-1.5 mm. Caryopses equaling or slightly shorter
than the paleas, thin, weakly inrolled or flat. 2n = 28, 42.
Bromus lanceolatus grows in waste places,
and is also cultivated as an ornamental. It has been introduced to the Flora region from southern Europe, and
is reported from scattered sites, e.g., Yonkers, New York (wool waste); College
Station, Texas; and Pima County, Arizona.
