Description:

• Annual or perennial or short-lived perennial, tufted, sometimes rhizomatous, sometimes geniculate
• Leaf blade linear, flat or rolled; ligule an unfringed membrane
• Inflorescence a panicle, open or contracted, rarely reduced to a raceme; spikelets solitary, pedicelled
• Spikelet laterally compressed to varying degree, disarticulating above glumes; glumes unequal, rarely ± equal, similar, shorter than spikelet, keeled or rounded on back, awnless; lower glume 1-7-nerved; upper glume 3-9-nerved
• Florets 3-many (rarely 1 or 2), bisexual with uppermost floret reduced; lemma 5-15-nerved, keeled or rounded on back, entire or 2-lobed, awnless, mucronate or awned from sinus, awn straight, often stiff; palea as long as or slightly shorter than lemma, membranous, 2-nerved, 2-keeled, ciliate or pectinate along keels
• Lodicules 2
• Stamens 1-3
• Ovary obovoid, hairy, with a conspicuous villous appendage at apex; styles 2, plumose
• x = 7 (high polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Bromus L.
  • Linnaeus: 76 (1753)
  • Stapf: 726 (1900)
  • Chippindall: 62 (1955)
  • Clayton: 66 (1970)
  • Launert: 59 (1971)
  • Pinto-Escobar: 9 (1976)
  • Smith: 182 (1980)
  • Clayton & Renvoize: 144 (1986)
  • Linder: 61 (1986)
  • Gibbs Russell et al.: 73 (1990)
  • Watson & Dallwitz: 188 (1994)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species ± 150, mainly north temperate areas, tropical mountains, South America
• Southern Africa: Species ± 15, widespread