Great Brome

Scientific Name:

Bromus diandrus

Great Brome plants
Photo: A J Brown

Status:

Native to the Mediterranean and south-west Europe. Naturalised across Australia.

Plant Description:

Tufted annual grass to 80 cm tall. Leaves are covered in soft spreading hairs, are flat or loosely folded and up to 15 cm long and 10 mm wide.

Flower-head is a loose, drooping, panicle to 15 cm long. Spikelets contain 4-10 florets, subtended by outer glumes of 13-27 mm length; the lower being shorter than the upper. The lemma (larger of the inner flowering bracts) has two rough, membranous, apical lobes, 4-7 mm long and a more or less straight awn or bristle from 35-60 mm length.

Habitat:

A common and widespread weed of pastures, crops, roadsides and waste ground but also encroaches on wetlands and the higher parts of saline flats.

Region	Salinity Class	Waterlogging Class
Mallee, Loddon Murray	S0	W0, W1
Wimmera, Central & Northern	S0	W0, W1
Western, Gippsland, Coastal	S0	W0, W1

Comments:

There are about 12 species of Brome-grasses found in Victoria, all but one being introduced exotics. Other common species include Soft Brome (Bromus hordeaceus) and Red Brome (B. rubens). Great Brome can be a serious pest to cereal growers and to sheep farmers, when mature spikelets dislodge and become entangled in fleeces.

Great Brome plants
Photo: A J Brown

Great Brome spikelets
Photo: A J Brown

The long awns of Great Brome
Photo: A J Brown

Great Brome spikelets
Photo: A J Brown

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