Plants annual, rarely biennial. Culms 5-60 cm, erect. Sheaths pilose; ligules 0.5-1 mm, hairy, obtuse; blades 3-13 cm long, 2-4 mm wide. Panicles 2-10 cm long, 1.5-3 cm wide, erect, contracted or loose; branches shorter than the spikelets,
ascending, slightly curved or straight. Spikelets
6-15 mm, lanceolate, shiny, terete to moderately laterally compressed; florets 5-12, bases concealed at
maturity; rachilla internodes
concealed at maturity. Glumes
glabrous; lower glumes 4-4.6 mm,
3-5-veined; upper glumes 5.2-5.4 mm,
7-veined; lemmas 4.5-6.5 mm long,
1.5-1.7 mm wide, elliptic, glabrous, distinctly 7-veined, rounded over the
midvein, margins broadly hyaline, sharply angled, not inrolled at maturity,
apices notched, notch at least 0.6 mm deep; awns 2-6 mm, straight, arising from the base of the apical notch
but less than 1.5 mm below the lemma apices; anthers 0.5-2 mm. Caryopses
longer than the paleas, thin, weakly inrolled or flat. 2n = 28.
Bromus lepidus grows in fields and waste
places. It is native to Europe, and is reported from New York and Massachusetts;
it probably also occurs elsewhere in the Flora
region.
Specimens
of Bromus hordeaceus subsp. pseudothominei-often approach B. lepidus in lemma characteristics (e.g., length, smoothness, and
margin angle), so that either may be misinterpreted. Characteristics helpful in
distinguishing B. lepidus are the
wide apical notch on the lemmas, and the length of the caryopses relative to
the paleas.
