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Wood bluegrass (Poa nemoralis)

Wood bluegrass Description: Nutritious for livestock, which feed on it in autumn months.

Habit: Grows 30-80 cm in height. Forms loose tufts and is more delicate and slender in appearance than other grasses.

Leaves: Dark green, lance shaped, sheath open 3/4 length to near base; ligule less than 0.5 mm, minutely scabrous, truncate, blade 1.5-4mm wide, soft, generally flat, abruptly spreading, barely prow-tipped.

Stems: Slender, leafy, 30-80 cm high, green to ligh brown at maturity. Panicle is slender, loose, and branched.

Flowers: Small individual flowers encased in bracts called lemmas. Attached to the long stem by a shorter stem. Flowers are smaller than 1/24 in and change from green to light brown at maturity.

Fruit and seeds: Contains many simple seeds. Florets grow outward along the stem in dense clusters. Each floret is a long, elliptical container encased by lemmas and coming to a sharp point. Mature florets break open to release seeds.

Habitat: Native to Eurasia. Grows well in disturbed sites, forest edges and clearings, old homesites, rock ledges and bluffs.

Reproduction: By seed.

Similar species: Other species of Poa.

Credits: The information provided in this factsheet was gathered from the French Hill Pond Field Plants, Jepson Herbarium and Wikipedia.

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).


Common Name:

Wood bluegrass

Scientific Name:

Poa nemoralis

Family:

Poaceae
(Grass)

Duration:

Perennial

Habit:

Grasses

USDA Symbol:

PONE