Flora of New Zealand Series

pampas brome

Short, light green, rather stiffly erect, narrow-leaved perennial tufts, 30-75 cm. Leaf-sheath keeled above, ± densely hairy with long, soft hairs, sometimes reddish purple at base. Ligule 1.5-2.5 mm, denticulate, abaxially with long hairs near margins in lower ½. Leaf-blade 9-20 cm × 1.5-4.5 mm, with scattered to dense, long, soft, fine hairs; margins finely scabrid, tip fine, acute. Culm erect, internodes glabrous. Panicle 8-15 cm; branches ± compressed, erect, minutely hairy on angles. Spikelets 1-2 cm, narrow-oblong, light yellowish green. Glumes ± unequal, acute to acuminate, glabrous or sometimes with scattered short hairs, keel ciliate-scabrid; lower c. 4-4.5 mm, 3-5-nerved, upper 5-6 mm, 7-nerved. Lemma 8.5-10 mm, 7-9-nerved, keeled, with very short, silky, scattered, appressed hairs in upper ⅔, acute or shortly mucronate or with very short awn 0.5-0.8 mm. Palea ⅔ length of lemma and much narrower. Callus almost glabrous, with a few, very minute hairs. Rachilla with very short hairs. Anthers 0.2-0.5 mm in cleistogamous flowers, 1.5 mm in chasmogamous flowers. Caryopsis c. 6 × 2 mm.

S.: Canterbury (near Amberley, at Lincoln as a cultivation escape), Central Otago (near Ophir, on Raggedy Range, and Lake Roxburgh). Roadsides, and waste ground.

Naturalised from South America.

Bromus brevis behaved as an annual in trials at Christchurch (A. V. Stewart, pers. comm.).

Planchuelo, A. M. Kurtziana 21: 243-257 (1991) and Petersen, P. M. and Planchuelo, A. M. Novon 8: 53-60 (1998) considered that the recognition of B. brevis at varietal rank within B. catharticus  sens. lat. seemed warranted, but earlier Naranjo, C. A. Darwiniana 31: 173-183 (1992) supported species rank for B. brevis.