Bromus berteroanus
Bromus berteroanus, commonly known as Chilean chess, is an annual grass in the Poaceae family. It grows with stems (culms) from about 10 to 80 cm tall. The leaf sheaths are lightly hairy and the ligules are hairless, with leaf blades 5 to 20 cm long. The flowering part is a dense panicle 5 to 15 cm long, with branches that feel slightly rough. The spikelets are solitary, and fertile spikelets have pedicels that are also lightly rough. Each lance-shaped spikelet carries 3 to 5 florets, and the spikelets break apart at maturity below these florets. Both upper and lower glumes are shorter and thinner than the fertile lemmas, which are 10 to 12 mm long and have seven veins.
Chilean chess is native to western South America, including Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Bolivia, and Argentina. It has been introduced to parts of the western United States, from Oregon through California to Baja California, and east to Utah and Nevada. It tends to grow in dry areas in subtropical environments.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 08:48 (CET).