Northeast Wetland Flora
Field Office Guide to Plant Species
Bromus dudleyi Fern.
- Family: Grass (Gramineae)
- Flowering: June-August
- Field Marks: The features that distinguish this brome from all others are the perennial growth form, the spreading or drooping panicle branches, the nodes not completely covered by the leaf sheaths, and the flat or convex lemmas with hairs confined to two marginal rows.
- Habitat: Wet meadows, damp thickets.
- Habit: Perennial herb from thickened rootstocks.
- Stems: Upright, branched or unbranched, up to 4 feet tall, smooth.
- Leaves: Elongated, flat, smooth or sometimes hairy on the upper surface, usually smooth on the lower surface, up to 1/2 inch across; sheaths smooth or hairy, shorter than the internodes.
- Flowers: Several in open panicles up to 2 feet long, the branches spreading to drooping; spikelets 4- to 7-flowered, green, purplish, or bronze, up to 1 1/4 inches long, up to 1/2 inch wide.
- Glumes: Flat or convex, the first 1-nerved, the second 3-nerved, usually with some hairiness, tapering to a pointed tip.
- Lemmas: Flat or convex, narrowly oblong, 3- to 5-nerved, with 2 rows of marginal hairs, up to 1/2 inch long, with an awn 1/10-1/5 inch long.
- Sepals: 0.
- Petals: 0.
- Stamens: 3.
- Pistils: Ovary superior.
- Fruits: Grains oblongoid to lanceoloid, smooth.
- Notes: This plant is considered to be the same as B. ciliatus by Gleason and Cronquist. They call the family Poaceae. The grains are eaten by waterfowl.
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