Plants perennial; not rhizomatous. Culms 50-100(110) cm, usually erect, sometimes decumbent at the base; nodes 3-5, pubescent, puberulent, or glabrous; internodes puberulent or glabrous. Sheaths and throats pilose or glabrous; auricles absent; ligules 0.5-1 mm, glabrous, truncate, erose; blades 10-17 cm long, 5-10 mm wide, flat, with prow-shaped tips, both surfaces glabrous or pilose or only the adaxial surfaces pilose. Panicles 8-13 cm, open, drooping; branches ascending to spreading, flexuous. Spikelets 15-25 mm, elliptic to lanceolate, terete to moderately laterally compressed, with 7-11 florets. Glumes pubescent, margins often hyaline; lower glumes 5-7.5 mm, 3-veined; upper glumes 6.5-8.5 mm, 5-veined; lemmas 7-11 mm, elliptic to lanceolate, rounded over the midvein, backs more or less uniformly pilose or pubescent, margins densely long-pilose, apices acute to obtuse, entire; awns 1.5-3 mm, straight, arising less than 1.5 mm below the lemma apices; anthers 1.5-2.5 mm. 2n = 14.

Bromus kalmii grows in sandy, gravelly, or limestone soils in open woods and calcareous fens. Its range centers in the north-central and northeastern United States and adjacent Canadian provinces.

Perennial 5-10 dm, the culms loosely clustered or solitary, mostly glabrous except for the often hairy nodes; lvs mostly 3-6 per stem, the nodes mostly exposed; sheaths villous to occasionally glabrous; blades 1-2 dm נ5-10 mm, glabrous or hairy; ligule under 1 mm; infl nodding, 5-10 cm, the relatively few spikelets drooping on slender flexuous pedicels; spikelets 15-25 mm, 6-11-fld, softly villous; first glume 6-7 mm; 3-veined, the second 7-9 mm, 5-veined; lemmas 8-10 mm, 7-veined, obtuse, the awn 2-3 mm, the short lemma-teeth a third as wide as long; 2n=14. Dry woods, rocky banks, and sandy soil; Me. to Minn. and S.D., s. to Md. and Io.

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

©The New York Botanical Garden. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

From Flora of Indiana (1940) by Charles C. Deam

Infrequent on low, open dunes and in marshy and springy places in the lake region. [Deam also recognizes B. purgans and notes that it is:] infrequent to frequent throughout the state in dry places, rarely in wet places, in black and white oak woods and less frequent in beech and sugar maple woods.

......

Indiana Coefficient of Conservatism: C = 10

Wetland Indicator Status: FAC