Bromus oxyodon Schrenk

This is a short-lived forage grass in deserts and dry mountains.

Bromus oxyodon is similar to Bromus pectinatus, especially when young, but can be distinguished by its longer glumes, its relatively longer and strongly reflexed (when mature) awn and its more open panicle suffused with purple.

Annual. Culms loosely tufted, erect or geniculately ascending, 30–60 cm tall. Lower leaf sheaths retrorsely pubescent, upper sheaths glabrous; leaf blades linear, 10–20 cm × 4–8 mm, both surfaces pubescent. Panicle lax, spreading, 10–25 × 10–15 cm, often purplish; branches whorled, usually much longer than spikelets, filiform, flexuous, scabrid, each bearing 2–4 nodding spikelets. Spikelets lanceolate, 25–35 mm, florets 6–10, overlapping; glumes unequal, lanceolate, margins membranous, apex acuminate, lower glume 9–11 mm, upper glume 11–14 mm; lemmas oblong-elliptic, 12–15 mm, 7-veined, glabrous or pubescent, margins broad, hyaline, apex 2-toothed, teeth acuminate, 1.5–3 mm, awned from sinus; awn 15–25 mm, base flattened and slightly twisted, recurved at maturity; palea 2/3 as long as lemma, keels ciliate. Anthers 1.2–1.8 mm. Caryopsis lanceolate, 8–10 × ca. 2 mm. Fl. and fr. May–Aug. 2n = 28.

Annual; culms erect or geniculately ascending, up to 60 cm high. Leaf-blades up to 20 cm long, 2-5 mm wide, sheaths pubescent. Panicle 5-20 cm long, often suffused with purple, usually loose and spreading, up to 15 cm wide; branches ± whorled, l-4-spiculate, sometimes a little shorter than the spikelets but generally much longer, filiform and flexuous. Spikelets narrowly elliptic, 6-14-flowered, (15-)30-50 mm long excluding the awns, the lemmas overlapping and concealing the internodes; glumes glabrous or minutely hispidulous, the lower narrowly lanceolate, (8-)9-11 mm long, 3(-sub-5)-nerved, the upper narrowly ovate to lanceolate, 9-13 mm long, 5-7-nerved; lemmas narrowly elliptic in side view, the lower 12-18 mm long, herbaceous with broad hyaline margins not widened above the middle into an obtuse angle, 7-nerved, glabrous or minutely hispidulous, 2-toothed at the tip with acuminate teeth 1.5-2.5 mm long; awn subapical, flattened especially at the base, 15-30 mm long, longer than the lemma, erect at first, becoming reflexed and slightly twisted at maturity, palea shorter than the lemma, ciliolate on the keels; anthers 1.5-2 mm long.

Xinjiang [Afghanistan, NW India, Kashmir, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, W Mongolia, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan].

Distribution: Pakistan (Baluchistan, N.W.F.P., Gilgit & Kashmir); Central Asia from Afghanistan to Northwest India; Pamir, Tien Shan, Dzungaria and western Mongolia.

Fl. & Fr. Per.: May-August.

Desert grasslands, semi-dry slopes, mountain ravines, roadsides; 500–2600 m.

Bromus lanceolatus Roth subsp. oxyodon (Schrenk) Tzvelev; B. macrostachys Desfontaines var. oxyodon (Schrenk) Grisebach.