Bromus tectorumL.

Cheatgrass

WFO wfo-0000856649 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h

Bromus tectorum, photographed by Shane Johnson
fig. a Shane Johnson, CC0 1.0 / 2022-06-05 / obs. 204700061
Bromus tectorum, photographed by Pavel Kacl
fig. b Pavel Kacl, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205271976
Bromus tectorum, photographed by Cecelia Alexander
fig. c Cecelia Alexander, CC0 1.0 / obs. 205913250
Bromus tectorum, photographed by Ryan Sorrells
fig. d Ryan Sorrells, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205673030
Bromus tectorum, photographed by Amthinkia
fig. e Amthinkia, CC0 1.0 / obs. 204554702
Bromus tectorum, photographed by Craig Martin
fig. f Craig Martin, CC0 1.0 / obs. 205931113
Bromus tectorum, photographed by Grzegorz Grzejszczak
fig. g Grzegorz Grzejszczak, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 203784800
Bromus tectorum, photographed by Dilrukshan Priyantha Wijesinghe
fig. h Dilrukshan Priyantha Wijesinghe, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 203609992

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.

Confused withby our own model

These are not lookalikes we guessed at. Each one is a species our identification model genuinely mistook for this plant, and how many times. The error rate is published.

Flowering n = 215 observations

Peak flowering in May, from 215 community-annotated observations worldwide. This is a global aggregate, not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres, and citizen-science records cluster near cities, at weekends, and in spring. Where a species has fewer than 30 annotated records we do not draw this chart at all.

Also published as 59 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.

  • Anisantha pontica K.Koch
  • Anisantha tectorum (L.) Nevski
  • Anisantha tectorum var. hirsuta (Regel) Tzvelev
  • Bromus abortiflorus St.-Amans
  • Bromus australis R.Br.
  • Bromus avenaceus Lam.
  • Bromus lateripronus St.-Lag.
  • Bromus longipilus Kumm. & Sendtn.
  • Bromus madritensis var. caucasica Hack.
  • Bromus mairei Sennen & Mauricio
  • Bromus nutans St.-Lag.
  • Bromus scabriflorus Opiz
  • Bromus setaceus Buckley
  • Bromus sterilis Láng ex Kumm. & Sendtn.
  • Bromus sterilis f. ponticus (K.Koch) Kuntze
  • Bromus sterilis var. nudus (Klett & Richt.) Kuntze
  • Bromus sterilis var. tectorum (L.) Kuntze
  • Bromus tectorius Dulac
  • Bromus tectorum f. coloratus Jansen & Wacht.
  • Bromus tectorum f. glabratus (Spenn.) H.St.John
  • Bromus tectorum f. nudus (Klett & Richt.) H.St.John
  • Bromus tectorum f. nudus (Klett & Richt.) Hiitonen
  • Bromus tectorum subsp. abortiflorus (St.-Amans) K.Richt.
  • Bromus tectorum subsp. glabratum Schübl. & G.Martens

and 35 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.

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