Brachypodium phoenicoides(L.) Roem. & Schult.

thinleaf false brome

WFO wfo-0000854498 Accepted WFO 2026-06 6 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–f · 3 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 3 times, so some figures below are different views of the same plant, taken on the same day, rather than different individuals. They are usually different parts of it: the leaf, the flower, the bark.

Brachypodium phoenicoides, photographed by Thomas Gyselinck
fig. a Thomas Gyselinck, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-01-01 / obs. 174406110
Brachypodium phoenicoides, photographed by Thomas Gyselinck
fig. b Thomas Gyselinck, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 174406114
Brachypodium phoenicoides, photographed by Julien Renoult
fig. c Julien Renoult, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 11535226
Brachypodium phoenicoides, photographed by Thomas Gyselinck
fig. d Thomas Gyselinck, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 174406109
Brachypodium phoenicoides, photographed by David Delon
fig. e David Delon, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 137494730
Brachypodium phoenicoides, photographed by Julien Renoult
fig. f Julien Renoult, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 11535217

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 14 botanical countries

Regions where Brachypodium phoenicoides is native: Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Albania, Baleares, Corse, France, Greece, Italy, NW. Balkan Pen., Portugal, Sardegna, Sicilia, Spain AlgeriaMoroccoTunisiaAlbaniaCorseFranceGreeceItalyNW. Balkan Pen.PortugalSiciliaSpain BalearesSardegna
Native distribution of Brachypodium phoenicoides, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Albania ALB EUROPE
Baleares BAL
Corse COR
France FRA
Greece GRC
Italy ITA
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Portugal POR
Sardegna SAR
Sicilia SIC
Spain SPA
Algeria ALG AFRICA
Morocco MOR
Tunisia TUN

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Where it actually grows measured, from 161 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -0.7 °C 3.8 °C 10.6 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 22.4 °C 28.1 °C 31.5 °C
Annual rainfall 421 mm 698 mm 978 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 16 mm 71 mm 151 mm

It is found where winters bring light frost. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 161 research-grade observations of Brachypodium phoenicoides that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.

Also published as 30 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Brachypodium caespitosum var. phoenicoides (L.) Benth.
  • Brachypodium cespitosum var. phoenicoides (L.) Benth.
  • Brachypodium frenchii Sennen ex St.-Yves
  • Brachypodium gandogeri Hack. ex Gand.
  • Brachypodium littorale Roem. & Schult.
  • Brachypodium longifolium P.Beauv.
  • Brachypodium macropodum Hack.
  • Brachypodium mucronatum var. multiflorum Willk.
  • Brachypodium mucronatum var. villosum Willk.
  • Brachypodium phoenicoides var. gracile (St.-Yves) P.Silva & C.M.A.Rodrigues
  • Brachypodium phoenicoides var. macropodum (Hack.) Henriq.
  • Brachypodium phoenicoides var. obtusum Pau
  • Brachypodium phoenicoides var. reynieri Giraudias
  • Brachypodium pinnatum subsp. phoenicoides (L.) Husn.
  • Brachypodium pinnatum subsp. phoenicoides (L.) Nyman
  • Brachypodium pinnatum var. australe Godr.
  • Brachypodium pinnatum var. longifolium (P.Beauv.) Asch. & Graebn.
  • Brachypodium pinnatum var. phoenicoides (L.) Trab.
  • Brachypodium pinnatum var. phoenicoides (L.) Fiori
  • Brachypodium pinnatum var. reynieri Giraudias
  • Brachypodium ramosum subvar. glabriflorum St.-Yves
  • Brachypodium ramosum var. gigas St.-Yves
  • Brachypodium ramosum var. phoenicoides (L.) W.D.J.Koch
  • Brachypodium velutinum Sennen

and 6 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.