Photo from Virginia Moore

Vegetative Morphology
Plants	annual.
Culms	20-80 cm.
Leaves	evenly distributed.
Sheaths	open to near the base, margins overlapping.
Ligules	3-7 mm.
Blades	2.5-20 cm long, 2-8 mm wide.
Reproductive Morphology
Panicles	3.5-10 cm long, mostly 1-5 cm wide.
Pedicels	5-20 mm.
Spikelets	10-20 mm.
Florets	4-12(15).
Lower glumes	5-5.5 mm, 5-veined.
Upper glumes	6-6.5 mm, 7-veined.
Lowermost lemmas	7-9 mm, 7-9-veined.
Paleas	about 4 mm.
Anthers	1.2-1.5 mm.
Caryopses	2-3 mm.

Chromosome Number(s)

2n = 10, 14

Typical Habitat(s)

Cultivated in its native range as an ornamental; sometimes escaping and becoming naturalized.

An invader of coastal dunes in the Flora region.

A native of the Mediterranean region.

Known from scattered locations in the Flora region, mainly in Oregon and California.

Briza maxima L., Sp. pl. 1:70 (1753). LEC: LINN 88.6; Italy; J.F. Seguier [Sherif & Siddiqi, Flora of Libya 145:82 (1988)].

Neil Snow. Briza in Flora of North America, volume 24. In prep. Oxford University Press.