Both Poaceae

Bromus diandrus vs Nassella pulchra

These two are not on this page because a keyword tool suggested them. They are here because our own identification model genuinely mistook one for the other, on real photographs, 3 times. We publish the rate, and then we tell you what actually separates them.

Confused 3x by our model Method published

Side by sidefigs. a and b

Bromus diandrus, photographed by John Lyden
fig. a John Lyden, CC BY 4.0

Bromus diandrus

great brome
Nassella pulchra, photographed by Arvel Hernandez
fig. b Arvel Hernandez, CC BY 4.0

Nassella pulchra

purple needlegrass

How often our model gets it wrong measured, not estimated

When the plant was The model said How often
Nassella pulchra Bromus diandrus 3 of 20 (15%)

Measured on 38,949 openly licensed, research-grade photographs. Full method and dataset.

What actually separates themon the record

Family Both Poaceae. The family does not separate them.
Genus Bromus versus Nassella.
Flowering Peaks in May versus April. If the plant is in flower, timing helps. (n = 124 and 61.)

What we do not have yet: the diagnostic morphological character that a botanist would key on, from a source we can cite. We are not going to invent one. Until we have it, this page tells you the two are genuinely confusable, how often, and what the taxonomy and the flowering data do and do not settle.

Both recordsfull pages