Plants perennial; not rhizomatous. Culms 80-150 cm, erect; nodes 9-20, glabrous, usually concealed by the leaf sheaths; internodes usually glabrous, sometimes hairy just below the nodes. Sheaths overlapping, densely to moderately retrorsely pilose or glabrous over most of their surface, throats and collars densely pilose; auricles 1-2.5 mm on most lower leaves; ligules 0.8-1.4 mm, hirsute, ciliate, truncate, erose; blades 20-30 cm long, 5-15 mm wide, flat, usually glabrous, rarely pilose, with 2 prominent flanges at the collar. Panicles 10-22 cm, open, nodding; branches spreading to ascending. Spikelets 15-30 mm, elliptic to lanceolate, terete to moderately laterally compressed, with 4-9 florets. Glumes pubescent or glabrous; lower glumes 4-7.5 mm, 1(3)-veined; upper glumes 6-9 mm, 3-veined, sometimes mucronate; lemmas 8-14 mm, elliptic to lanceolate, rounded over the midvein, backs glabrous or pilose to pubescent, margins long-pilose, apices obtuse to acute, entire; awns 3-4.5(7) mm, straight, arising less than 1.5 mm below the lemma apices; anthers 2-3 mm. 2n = 14.

Bromus latiglumis grows in shaded or open woods, along stream banks, and on alluvial plains and slopes. Its range is mainly in the north-central and northeastern United States and adjacent Canadian provinces. Specimens with decumbent, weak, sprawling culms, densely hairy sheaths, and heavy panicles can be called Bromus latiglumis forma incanus (Shear) Fernald.

Much like no. 8 [Bromus pubescens Willd.]; lvs more numerous, commonly 8-20 per culm, the sheaths longer than the internodes, densely villous externally in a ring at the top; blades with 2 well developed basal flanges usually prolonged into auricles or short divergent spurs; anthers 1.5-2.2 mm. Moist woods; Me. to N.C., w. to Mont. and Okla. (B. altissimus)

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 throughout the state. This species seems to prefer dense shade and is found most often on wooded slopes along streams and in ravines, in fact, it is rarely found far distant from a stream. This species was separated from the form with densely pubescent sheaths by most authors but Hitchcock has united the two forms under this name.

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Indiana Coefficient of Conservatism: C = 6

Wetland Indicator Status: FACW