Bromus carinatusHook. & Arn.

California brome

WFO wfo-0000855335 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Bromus carinatus, photographed by Daniel Cahen
fig. a Daniel Cahen, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-07-31 / obs. 147525946
Bromus carinatus, photographed by Daniel Cahen
fig. b Daniel Cahen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 140678542
Bromus carinatus, photographed by Piermario Maculan
fig. c Piermario Maculan, CC0 1.0 / obs. 139117937
Bromus carinatus, photographed by Meng-Ying Tsai
fig. d Meng-Ying Tsai, CC0 1.0 / obs. 112771813
Bromus carinatus, photographed by Daniel Cahen
fig. e Daniel Cahen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 104620978
Bromus carinatus, photographed by Daniel Cahen
fig. f Daniel Cahen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 92647717
Bromus carinatus, photographed by Craig Martin
fig. g Craig Martin, CC0 1.0 / obs. 89831477
Bromus carinatus, photographed by Gabriel Mayrhofer
fig. h Gabriel Mayrhofer, CC0 1.0 / obs. 82479120

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 20 botanical countries

Regions where Bromus carinatus is native: Alberta, British Columbia, California, Mexico Central, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Northwest, Mexico Southeast, Mexico Southwest, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas, Washington, Yukon, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Peru, Venezuela AlbertaBritish ColumbiaCaliforniaMexico CentralMexico GulfMexico NortheastMexico NorthwestMexico SoutheastMexico SouthwestNew MexicoOregonTexasWashingtonYukonCosta RicaEl SalvadorGuatemalaHondurasPeruVenezuela
Native distribution of Bromus carinatus, 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.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Alberta ABT NORTHERN AMERICA
British Columbia BRC
California CAL
Mexico Central MXC
Mexico Gulf MXG
Mexico Northeast MXE
Mexico Northwest MXN
Mexico Southeast MXT
Mexico Southwest MXS
New Mexico NWM
Oregon ORE
Texas TEX
Washington WAS
Yukon YUK
Costa Rica COS SOUTHERN AMERICA
El Salvador ELS
Guatemala GUA
Honduras HON
Peru PER
Venezuela VEN

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.

Flowering 66 in flower of 106 examined

Peak flowering in May. Each bar is the share of Bromus carinatus observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 66 of 106 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 6 months have fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for them. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 33 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.

  • Bromus californicus Nutt. ex Buckley
  • Bromus carinatus var. californicus Shear
  • Bromus carinatus var. carinatus
  • Bromus carinatus var. densus Shear
  • Bromus carinatus var. hookerianus (Thurb.) Shear
  • Bromus carinatus var. linearis Shear
  • Bromus compressus Lag.
  • Bromus hookeri var. pendulinus (Sessé ex Lag.) E.Fourn.
  • Bromus hookeri var. schaffneri E.Fourn.
  • Bromus hookeri var. schlechtendalii E.Fourn.
  • Bromus hookerianus Thurb.
  • Bromus hookerianus var. minor Scribn.
  • Bromus laciniatus Beal
  • Bromus luzonensis J.Presl
  • Bromus nitens Nutt. ex A.Gray
  • Bromus oregonus Shear
  • Bromus pendulinus Sessé ex Lag.
  • Bromus proximus var. schlechtendalii (E.Fourn.) Shear
  • Bromus schaffneri (E.Fourn.) Scribn. & Merr.
  • Bromus sitchensis var. carinatus (Hook. & Arn.) R.E.Brainerd & Otting
  • Bromus subvelutinus Shear
  • Bromus virens Buckley
  • Bromus virens var. minor Scribn. ex Beal
  • Ceratochloa carinata (Hook. & Arn.) Tutin

and 9 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.