Wood False Brome

 

Scientific Name: Brachypodium sylvaticum (Huds.) P.Beauv.
Family: Poaceae

 

MORPHOLOGY

 

Habit and Size: It is a perennial herbaceous tufted plant with a short and fibrous rhizome, non-stoloniferous, reaching heights of 30-50 cm.

 

Stem: The stems are slender, ascending, leafy up to the inflorescence, never branched even at the base; nodes are silky.

 

Leaves: The leaves are flat, light green, with a soft blade, wide (6)8-12 mm, curved with a pendulous tip, lacking auricles, with scattered hairs along the margins; sheaths are furnished with long spreading hairs; ligule 1(2) mm, truncate-fringed.

 

Flowers: The inflorescence is a flexuous spike, often inclined, with (4)6-12 elongated cylindrical spikelets, 8-15-flowered, 15-25 mm long (excluding awns), spaced apart and ± appressed on the rachis, on peduncles of less than 1 mm. It blooms from May to August.

 

Fruits and Seeds: The fruit is a pubescent caryopsis at the apex.

 

DISTRIBUTION AND HABITAT

 

Widespread throughout Italy, in broad-leaved forests (alders, oak, beech, etc.), from 0 to 1600 m.

 

Photo: Used under a free license from Saxifraga and Rutger Barendse, Jelle van Dijk.