Brachypodium sylvaticum, commonly known as false-brome, slenderfalse brome or wood false brome, is a perennial grass native to Europe, Asia and Africa. It has a broad native range stretching from North Africa to Eurasia. The bunchgrass is most commonly found in forests and woodlands, preferring the shaded canopy, but may grow in open areas. It prefers well drained neutral and calcerous soils, and avoids wet conditions.
Description
Brachypodium sylvaticum is a tall tuftedperennial bunchgrass that grows up to about a high. The drooping leaf blade of the plant is dark green, or bright-yellow green, flat and up to 12 mm wide with a fringe of hairs surrounding the edge of the leaf. The leaves do not have auricles. The leaf blade is joined to the hollowculm by the leaf sheath. This hairy sheath is open and surrounds the culm. The culm is pilose, and typically has 4 to 5 nodes. The ligules are blunt, long. The grass has drooping narrow long spikelets of flowers on very short pedicels. The flower head is long, the plant flowering in July and August. Its awns are straight and long, projecting out of the end of the spikelets.
The grass is an introduced species in North America. Brachypodium sylvaticum is an invasive species colonizing new areas and outcompeting native plants. As this species has spread to the Pacific Northwest of the U.S. it has demonstrated a capability of dominating forest understories and open grasslands to the exclusion of all other flora found in those areas. Recent observations suggest that populations at the leading edge of the expanding range undergo an establishment phase before they can contribute to the local invasion, perhaps because newly colonized populations are suffering from inbreeding depression. ;Oregon Brachypodium sylvaticum is a newly invasive brome species in Oregon that is rapidly expanding in the Pacific Northwest. Although B. sylvaticumappears to be in the early phases of invasion in North America, it has become a noxious weed throughout the Willamette Valley area of Oregon in the last 20 years. It is speculated that B. sylvaticum was first introduced to Oregon in range experiments when accessions from the native range were planted at two locations in the Willamette Valley anywhere between 70 and 80 years ago.
