DISTRIBUTION AND OCCURRENCE
SPECIES : Bromus hordeaceus | Soft Chess 


GENERAL DISTRIBUTION : 
Soft chess is native to Eurasia, where it is most common in the
Mediterranean region [61,95].  It has naturalized in all other
continents except Antarctica [54,95].  Soft chess is widely distributed
but scattered and uncommon in most of North America [35,38,54,59],
ranging from coastal southern Alaska south to Baja California and east
to Maine, North Carolina, and Texas [22,35,38,50,54,83].  Soft chess is
most common in low-elevation valleys and foothills of California and
southwestern Oregon where climate is mediterranean.  It is more abundant
in mediterranean areas of California than in Mediterranean Europe [61].


ECOSYSTEMS : 
   FRES28  Western hardwoods
   FRES29  Sagebrush
   FRES30  Desert shrub
   FRES34  Chaparral-mountain shrub
   FRES38  Plains grasslands
   FRES42  Annual grasslands


STATES : 
     AK  AZ  CA  CO  CT  ID  IL  KS  ME  MA
     MI  MT  NE  NV  NM  ND  NC  OR  RI  SD
     TX  UT  WA  WI  AB  BC  MB  NB  NF  ON
     PE  PQ  SK  MEXICO


BLM PHYSIOGRAPHIC REGIONS : 
    1  Northern Pacific Border
    2  Cascade Mountains
    3  Southern Pacific Border
    4  Sierra Mountains
    5  Columbia Plateau
    6  Upper Basin and Range
    7  Lower Basin and Range
    8  Northern Rocky Mountains
   11  Southern Rocky Mountains
   12  Colorado Plateau
   13  Rocky Mountain Piedmont
   14  Great Plains
   15  Black Hills Uplift
   16  Upper Missouri Basin and Broken Lands


KUCHLER PLANT ASSOCIATIONS : 
   K009  Pine-cypress forest
   K026  Oregon oakwoods
   K030  California oakwoods
   K033  Chaparral
   K034  Montane chaparral
   K035  Coastal sagebrush
   K038  Great Basin sagebrush
   K040  Saltbush-greasewood
   K048  California steppe


SAF COVER TYPES : 
   233  Oregon white oak
   246  California black oak
   248  Knobcone pine
   249  Canyon live oak
   250  Blue oak-foothills pine
   255  California coast live oak


SRM (RANGELAND) COVER TYPES : 
   201  Blue oak woodland
   202  Coast live oak woodland
   203  Riparian woodland
   204  North coastal shrub
   205  Coastal sage shrub
   206  Chamise chaparral
   207  Scrub oak mixed chaparral
   208  Ceanothus mixed chaparral
   209  Montane shrubland
   214  Coastal prairie
   215  Valley grassland
   414  Salt desert shrub


HABITAT TYPES AND PLANT COMMUNITIES : 
Soft chess is typically dominant in annual grassland communities of
California and southwestern Oregon [9,61,63].  It is an important
component of some sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) steppe and palouse prairie
communities of eastern Washington and Oregon and southern Idaho,
especially where cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum) is a community dominant
[24,82].  Soft chess is not usually important in other plant communities
in which it occurs [38,54,76,83].

California annual grassland - The native prairie that occurred on
coastal and inland valleys of California and southwestern Oregon has
been almost entirely replaced by annual grassland, agricultural land, or
urban areas [9,19,41,45].  Conversion from native prairie to annual
grassland occurred in less than two hundred years [45,61].  Soft chess
is thought to have naturalized in native California prairie in about
1860 [45].  Species composition of native grasslands was poorly
documented and will always be open to debate [96].  Most experts agree
that coastal prairie and mesic inland valleys were dominanted by
perennial bunchgrasses [10,11,20,45,61].  Drier inland valleys may have
been dominated by native annual grasses [8].  Hoover [52] argued that
most native California prairie was dominated by annual forbs.

Species composition in California annual grassland is complex and
varied:  Even slight differences in climate, topography, and soil type
can alter species composition [45,61].  However, soft chess dominates
California annual grassland communities more often than any other plant
species [45,46,47].  In Pinnacles National Monument, for example, soft
chess has 26 percent cover and 100 percent frequency:  It is the most
commonly occurring seed plant in the Monument [41].  Even where it is
not dominant, soft chess is usually an important component of annual
grassland vegetation [45,61].

Publications describing plant communities in which soft chess is a
dominant part of the vegetation are listed below.

Plant communities of Santa Rosa Island, Channel Islands National Park [19]   
Vegetation and floristics of Pinnacles National Monument [41]
Valley grassland [45]
Coastal prairie and northern coastal scrub [47]
Plant associations within the Interior Valleys of the Umpqua River
  Basin, Oregon [85]

Plant species commonly associated with soft chess in California and
southwestern Oregon are listed below.

California: annual grassland - Broad-leaved filaree (Erodium botrys)
commmonly codominates with soft chess throughout California annual
grassland.  Red brome (B. rubens) and cutleaf filaree (E. cicutarium)
are also common associates, usually replacing soft chess and
broad-leaved filaree as dominants in portions of the Central Valley
where annual precipitation is less than 12 inches (305 mm) [9].  Other
common annuals include ripgut brome (B. rigidus), slender oat (Avena
barbata), wild oat (A. fatua), rattail fescue (Vulpia myuros), bur
clover (Medicago hispida), and yellow starthistle (Centaurea
solstitialis).  Native perennial associates include purple needlegrass
(Stipa pulchra), Sandberg bluegrass (Poa secunda), melic grass (Melica
californica), California oatgrass (Danthonia californica), bottlebrush
squirreltail (Elymus elymoides), Spanish clover (Lotus americanus), and
ground lupine (Lupinus bicolor) [16,47].

California hardwoods:  Soft chess is dominant to common in the
understory of oak (Quercus spp.) and other upland hardwood types.
Upland tree associates of soft chess not previously listed in SAF COVER
TYPES include valley oak (Q. lobata), tanoak (Lithocarpus densiflorus),
California black walnut (Juglans californica), and California buckeye
(Aesculus californica) [61,87,88].  Soft chess also occurs in Fremont
cottonwood/willow (Populus fremontii/Salix spp.) and other riparian
types [97].

Oregon:  annual grassland - Soft chess/hedgehog dogtail (Cynosurus
schinatus) communities occur on grassy balds of the Umpqua River Basin.
Associated grasses include California oatgrass, pine bluegrass (P.
scabrella), Sandberg bluegrass, and bottlebrush squirreltail [85].

Oregon white oak - Associates of soft chess in Oregon white oak (Q.
garryana) communities of southwestern Oregon include California brome
(B. carinatus), sheep fescue (Festuca ovina), birchleaf
mountain-mahogany (Cercocarpus betuloides), California black oak (Q.
kelloggii), poison-oak (Toxicodendron diversiloba), blue wildrye (E.
glaucus), rough bluegrass (P. trivalis), and burr chervil (Anthriscus
caucalis) [78].

Basin big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata ssp. tridentata) - At the
Sheep Rock Unit of John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, soft chess
associates in basin big sagebrush communities include Idaho fescue (F.
idahoensis), bluebunch wheatgrass (Pseudoroegneria spicata), cheatgrass,
western yarrow (Achillea millefolium), smallflower woodlandstar
(Lithaphragma parviflora), and western juniper (Juniperus occidentalis)
[82].

A medusahead (Taeniatherum caput-medusae)-rattail fescue-soft brome
community has been described in a bluebunch wheatgrass-Sandberg
bluegrass habitat type near Pendleton, Oregon [18].

Related categories for SPECIES : Bromus hordeaceus | Soft Chess