PlantKey Open ecological atlas
Planner
Home / Browse / Bromus / Rye Brome (var. secalinus)
iNaturalist — CC, credited & licensed per image
Pictured: Bromus secalinus — the species. This variety isn’t separately illustrated.
Poaceae family

Rye Brome (var. secalinus) Bromus secalinus var. secalinus variety

Rye Brome (var. secalinus) is an introduced annual grass, found in Alaska, Canada, and Hawaii.

More about this plant

Bromus secalinus is a species of bromegrass known as rye brome. The specific epithet secalinus is Latin, meaning "rye-like". The fruits are hard, rounded glumes that appear superficially similar to the rye grain, which gives the brome its common and scientific name. The grass has a diploid number of 28. Wikipedia →

Growing & care

USDA PLANTS · TRY
Conditions
Sources · Conditions
Cold hardiness (derived) — Hardiness
Hardiness
≥ zone 5 derived from its U.S. range
Size & form
Sources · Size & form
USDA PLANTS — Lifespan
Lifespan
Annual
In the garden
Herb layer — Sits in the herb of a layered food forest or polyculture.Open guide →
derived roles
Species characteristics from USDA PLANTS (public domain) + TRY (CC BY) — general guidance, not a guarantee for your exact site. Deer "browsing" is documented palatability, not a deer-proof claim.

Wildlife & pollinators

How pollinator value is scored →
❧ Caterpillar hosts ~12 caterpillar species

Bromus supports ~12 caterpillar species.

Native butterfly & moth caterpillars are the base of the terrestrial food web — most songbirds rear their young almost entirely on them. As a host for native Lepidoptera this is a moderate genus.

Recorded feeding on Bromus in North America, including:

Agrotis orthogonia · Pale Western Cutworm Apamea finitima · owlet moth Cisseps fulvicollis · Yellow-Collared Scape Moth Cosmiotes illectella · grass-miner moth Ctenucha virginica · Virginia Ctenucha Faronta diffusa · owlet moth
+ 8 more species →
Gonioterma mistrella · concealer moth Hemileuca oliviae · giant silk moth Hesperia comma · Silver-Spotted Skipper Hesperia juba · Juba Skipper Hesperia ottoe · Ottoe Skipper Leucania insueta · owlet moth Leucania multilinea · Many-Lined Wainscot Leucania phragmitidicola · Phragmites Wainscot
Keystone count (genus-level) from Warren II 2026 (CC0) · Tallamy host-use records. Named species (a documented Nearctic sample, not exhaustive) from NHM HOSTS (CC0).
Species thumbnails re-hosted from iNaturalist — Creative Commons, credited per image (hover for credit). Click any species to see it on iNaturalist. Not exhaustive; many taxa have no openly-licensed photo yet.
Sources for this entry (12) Open & cited
[01] Scientific name & family — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[02] Growth habit & duration — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[03] Native status & distribution — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[04] Common name — USDA PLANTS (via GBIF)
[05] Invasive / introduced status — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503) — native status
[06] Description — Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
[07] Ecological value — Warren II 2026 (CC0) · Tallamy host-use counts
[08] Cold hardiness (derived) — Derived from U.S. range × USDA PHZM zones
[10] Caterpillar host count — Warren II 2026 (Dryad, CC0) · Tallamy host-use counts
[11] Caterpillar species — NHM HOSTS (CC0)
Spot an error or have a better photo? Every field links to its source, and the whole dataset is open.
Cite this page Open data, please attribute

PlantKey’s data is open under CC BY-SA 4.0 — free to reuse and adapt, with attribution and the same licence. Photos keep their own per-image licence + credit (see Sources above).

Citation

Loading…

BibTeX 
Loading…