Kentucky bluegrass (Poa pratensis)

Description: Valuable pasture plant and food for multiple insects.

Habit: Vigorous, herbaceous, short to medium tall, cool season, sod forming grass.

Leaves: Basal, smooth, soft, measure 1/8-1/4 in wide and 6-12 in long with keeled tips.

Stems: Numerous in a tuft; grow 12-36 inches (30-91 cm) high.

Flowers: Non-flowering.

Fruit and seeds: Seed head panicles have an open-pyramid shape and produce numerous small seeds.

Habitat: Native to Eurasia. Found in agricultural areas, grasslands, disturbed, scrub, shrub lands.

Reproduction: By seed or rhizomes.

Similar species: Annual bluegrass (Poa annua).

Monitoring and rapid response: Mowing not recommended; Use of Glycophosphate herbicides most effective.

Credits: The information provided in this factsheet was gathered from the Invasive Species Specialist Group, the USDA PLANTS Database and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service.

Individual species images that appear with a number in a black box are courtesy of the Bugwood.org network (http://www.invasive.org).Individual photo author credits may not be included due to the small display size of the images and subsequent difficulty of reading the provided text. All other images appear courtesy of Google (http://images.google.com).

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