Bromus catharticusVahl

rescuegrass

WFO wfo-0000855346 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Bromus catharticus, photographed by Jenny Saito
fig. a Jenny Saito, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-05 / obs. 203750426

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 17 botanical countries

Regions where Bromus catharticus is native: Argentina Northeast, Argentina Northwest, Argentina South, Bolivia, Brazil South, Brazil Southeast, Brazil West-Central, Chile Central, Chile North, Chile South, Colombia, Ecuador, Juan Fernández Is., Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela Argentina NortheastArgentina NorthwestArgentina SouthBoliviaBrazil SouthBrazil SoutheastBrazil West-CentralChile CentralChile NorthChile SouthColombiaEcuadorParaguayPeruUruguayVenezuela
Native distribution of Bromus catharticus, 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
Argentina Northeast AGE SOUTHERN AMERICA
Argentina Northwest AGW
Argentina South AGS
Bolivia BOL
Brazil South BZS
Brazil Southeast BZL
Brazil West-Central BZC
Chile Central CLC
Chile North CLN
Chile South CLS
Colombia CLM
Ecuador ECU
Juan Fernández Is. JNF
Paraguay PAR
Peru PER
Uruguay URU
Venezuela VEN

Not drawn on the map: Juan Fernández Is.. We hold no public-domain boundary for this region, so it is listed rather than guessed at.

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 220 in flower of 533 examined

Proportion of examined Bromus catharticus in flower, by month
Month In flower Examined Share 95% interval
Jan 1 12 8% 1% to 35%
Feb 7 21 33% 17% to 55%
Mar 27 63 43% 31% to 55%
Apr 73 174 42% 35% to 49%
May 19 66 29% 19% to 41%
Jun 6 22 27% 13% to 48%
Jul 7 17 41% 22% to 64%
Aug 6 11 55% 28% to 79%
Sep 12 22 55% 35% to 73%
Oct 31 60 52% 39% to 64%
Nov 23 43 53% 39% to 67%
Dec 8 22 36% 20% to 57%

Peak flowering in Aug. Each bar is the share of Bromus catharticus 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. 220 of 533 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 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 72 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 angustatus Pilg.
  • Bromus bolivianus Renvoize
  • Bromus breviaristatus (Hook.) Thurb.
  • Bromus brongniartii Kunth
  • Bromus catharticus var. catharticus
  • Bromus haenkeanus (J.Presl) Kunth
  • Bromus mathewsii Steud.
  • Bromus matthewsii Steud.
  • Bromus mucronatus Willd. ex Steud.
  • Bromus preslii Kunth
  • Bromus schraderi Kunth
  • Bromus schraderi var. lasiophyllus Goiran
  • Bromus schraderi var. leiophyllus Goiran
  • Bromus strictus Brongn.
  • Bromus strictus (Poir.) Kunth
  • Bromus tacna Steud.
  • Bromus unioloides Kunth
  • Bromus unioloides (Willd.) Kunth ex Raspail
  • Bromus unioloides f. chasmogama Hack.
  • Bromus unioloides f. chasmogamus Hack.
  • Bromus unioloides f. cleistogama Hack.
  • Bromus unioloides f. cleistogamus Hack.
  • Bromus unioloides f. effusus Kloos
  • Bromus unioloides f. glabrescens Kloos

and 48 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.