Foxtail brome

Bromus rubens, the foxtail brome or red brome, is a tufted annual grass in the family Poaceae native to southern Europe, North Africa, and southwest Asia, and now extensively naturalized as an aggressive winter-annual weed across the southwestern United States, northern Mexico, Australia, and southern South America. Plants are erect, 15-60 cm tall, with slender to moderately stout culms emerging in small tufts from a fibrous root system; the lower leaf sheaths are conspicuously softly pubescent. Leaf blades are flat, 2-5 mm wide and 5-15 cm long, finely hairy on both surfaces, with a short truncate ligule 1-2 mm long. The inflorescence is a dense compact ovoid to oblong panicle 4-9 cm long, often becoming reddish to bright purplish at maturity, with short erect to slightly spreading branches. Spikelets are crowded, narrowly wedge-shaped, 2-3 cm long including awns, and contain 4-10 lanceolate lemmas 10-15 mm long that are sparsely to densely pubescent and tipped with a slender straight or slightly divergent awn 15-25 mm long. Flowering takes place in spring. The species inhabits dry sandy or rocky slopes, roadsides, overgrazed rangelands, and disturbed open ground, where it becomes highly flammable as it dries out in early summer.