Brachypodium phoenicoides (Poaceae), a (not so) new alien in Belgium

A large, apparently well-established population of Brachypodium phoenicoides, a predominantly western Mediterranean species, was discovered on a spoil tip slope in Winterslag-Genk (province of Limburg, Belgium) in 2016. A subsequent revision of herbarium collections stored in the Botanic Garden Meise showed that this species was already collected in 1946 in coastal dunes in De Panne. This xerophilous species has been slowly expanding northwards in the past decades in Europe, possibly favored by the ‘Global Warming’. Distinguishing features between B. phoenicoides and the very similar native sp... Mehr ...