Rhizomatous perennial; culms solitary or loosely tufted, up to 100 cm high. Leaf-blades up to 25 cm long, 3-6 mm wide, pubescent; sheaths densely pubescent. Panicle 10-18 cm long, usually simple, sometimes compound, short or long-branched. Spikelets oblong-lanceolate, 7-11-flowered, (15-)20-35 mm long excluding the awns, purple-tinged; glumes very narrowly lanceolate, pubescent, the lower 7-10 mm long, 1-nerved, the upper 9-14.5 mm long, 3-5-nerved; lemmas oblong-lanceolate, the lower 11-16 mm long, 5-7-nerved, pubescent all over or sometimes less hairy on the back than on the marginal nerves, faintly 2-toothed at the tip with a fine, straight awn 2.5-6 mm long; palea almost as long as the lemma, ciliate on the back and keels; rhachilla, pubescent; anthers (3-)3.5-6(-7) mm long.

Fl & Fr. Per.: July-August.

Type: NW. India, Royle 315 (LIV).

Distribution: Kashmir & Gilgit; Southwest Asia from Iran to the Himalayas.

Bromus confines is similar to and intergrades with Bromus inermis, differing mainly by the combination of long awn, hairy spikelets and pubescent sheaths and blades. The inflorescence is typically racemose and rather dense, grading into a long-branched form corresponding to Bromus munroi, which is here considered conspecific with Bromus confinis. Like Bromus inermis, Bromus confines is also part of a species complex and is not very well distinguished from either Bromus inermis or the northern Asian Bromus sibiricus. The latter is found from Northwest Russia across to East Sibiria and Mongolia and differs from Bromus confines by the lemmas being hairy only on the marginal nerves. It should perhaps be sought in Kashmir where it may conceiveably occur.

Specimen Hans Hartmann 75 has previously been determinated as Bromus biebersteinii Roem. & Schult. (see Stewart, Ann. Cat. Vasc. Pl. W. Pak. 139) but its hairy spikelets and green (rather than glaucous) leaves preclude such a possibility. It fits better in Bromus confines although it is an otherwise glabrous plant.

Bromus confines is found mainly at high altitudes.