Brachypodium sylvaticum is a tender, perennial grass growing in the shady herbaceous layer of broadleaf forests. Usually, it exceeds half a meter in height,
Brachypodium sylvaticum grows as tufts of soft, bright green, arched and ribbon-shaped leaves 1 cm wide by 15-20 cm long (photo 1). The stems have leaves up to the very top, so the spikes remain hidden amongst the leaves. The leaves have bristly, long and white hairs that can be seen against the light, most of them in the sheaths and on the margins of the lower part of the leaves. Between the beginning of the leaf and the sheath, there is an oval, 5-6 mm high, scarious ligule (photo 2). The spikes are small and weak in comparison to the vegetative part of the plant. They consist of a main axis, often pendulous, with 5-12 sessile, thin and elongated spikelets that arise in grooves or excavations in the axis and that do not separate that much from the axis. The spikelets are about 12 mm length without the awns; roughly one spilkelet begin where the other ends, but on the opposite side of the axis. The spikelets consist of 6-10 fertile flowers. Both the glumes and the lemmas or are hairy. The lemmas have a thin, about 15 mm length awn (photo 3).
Brachypodium sylvaticum lives in the forest where it tolerates shade. It is a well-distributed plant in Central Catalonia that can be found in oak woods and in the coolest holm oaks woods. It is a common herb in the upper part of the facing north channels in Montserrat massif.
[photos Jordi Badia]