Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, is a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. An internationally important botanical research and education institution, it employs 1,100 staff. Its board of trustees is chaired by Dame Amelia Fawcett.
Poaceae or Gramineae is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in lawns and pasture. The latter are commonly referred to collectively as grass.
A herbarium is a collection of preserved plant specimens and associated data used for scientific study.
Bromus tectorum, known as downy brome, drooping brome or cheatgrass, is a winter annual grass native to Europe, southwestern Asia, and northern Africa, but has become invasive in many other areas. It now is present in most of Europe, southern Russia, Japan, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Iceland, Greenland, North America and western Central Asia. In the eastern US B. tectorum is common along roadsides and as a crop weed, but usually does not dominate an ecosystem. It has become a dominant species in the Intermountain West and parts of Canada, and displays especially invasive behavior in the sagebrush steppe ecosystems where it has been listed as noxious weed. B. tectorum often enters the site in an area that has been disturbed, and then quickly expands into the surrounding area through its rapid growth and prolific seed production.
Bromus is a large genus of grasses, classified in its own tribe Bromeae. They are commonly known as bromes, brome grasses, cheat grasses or chess grasses. Estimates in the scientific literature of the number of species have ranged from 100 to 400, but plant taxonomists currently recognize around 160–170 species.
Ulmus laevisPall., variously known as the European white elm, fluttering elm, spreading elm, stately elm and, in the United States, the Russian elm, is a large deciduous tree native to Europe, from France northeast to southern Finland, east beyond the Urals into Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, and southeast to Bulgaria and the Crimea; there are also disjunct populations in the Caucasus and Spain, the latter now considered a relict population rather than an introduction by man, and possibly the origin of the European population. U. laevis is rare in the UK, although its random distribution, together with the absence of any record of its introduction, has led at least one British authority to consider it native. NB: The epithet 'white' elm commonly used by British foresters alluded to the timber of the wych elm.
Libertia is a genus of monocotyledenous plants in the family Iridaceae, first described as a genus in 1824. It is native to South America, Australia, New Guinea, and New Zealand. Seven species are endemic to New Zealand.
Bromus hordeaceus, the soft brome, is an annual or biennial species of grass in the true grass family (Poaceae). It is also known in North America as bull grass, soft cheat, and soft chess.
Sporobolus is a nearly cosmopolitan genus of plants in the grass family. The name Sporobolus means "seed-thrower", and is derived from Ancient Greek word σπόρος (spóros), meaning "seed", and the root of βάλλειν (bállein) "to throw", referring to the dispersion of seeds. Members of the genus are usually called dropseeds or sacaton grasses. They are typical prairie and savanna plants, occurring in other types of open habitat in warmer climates. At least one species is threatened with extinction, and another is extinct.
Bromus diandrus is a species of grass known by the common names great brome and "ripgut brome".
Bromus interruptus, commonly known as the interrupted brome, is a flowering plant in the grass family. It is endemic to southern and central England, which became extinct in the wild in 1972. After several decades in cultivation, the interrupted brome was re-introduced to Aston Rowant National Nature Reserve in 2004, marking the first known re-introduction of an extinct plant in Britain. The plant was a weed of waste places and arable agriculture, particularly of sainfoin cultivation. It can be distinguished from all other Bromus species by its deeply split, or bifid, palea.
Bromus sterilis is an annual or biennial species of bromegrass known as barren brome, poverty brome, and sterile brome.
Bromus maritimus is a species of brome grass known by the common names maritime brome and seaside brome. It is native to the coastal areas of California and Oregon.
Bromus commutatus, the meadow brome, is an annual or biennial species of plant in the grass family Poaceae. In the United States it is known as hairy chess.
Bromus erectus, commonly known as erect brome, upright brome or meadow brome, is a dense, course, tufted perennial grass. It can grow to 120 centimetres (47 in). Like many brome grasses the plant is hairy. The specific epithet erectus is Latin, meaning "erect". The diploid number of the grass is 56.
Bromus pubescens, the hairy woodland brome or hairy wood chess, is a grass species found across much of the eastern and central United States, as well as in Arizona, Québec and Ontario.
Epichloë bromicola is a haploid sexual species in the fungal genus Epichloë.
