Kentucky Blue-grass

Scientific Name:

Poa pratensis

Other Common Names:

Smooth Meadow-grass

Status:

Native to Europe and temperate Asia. Naturalised throughout most of Australia.

Plant Description:

Stoloniferous, perennial grass, growing to 90 cm tall with flat or folded, generally smooth leaves to 30 cm long and 4 mm wide with a boat-shaped tip. Flower-heads are loosely contracted to open and spreading panicles to 20 cm long and 12 cm wide. Each spikelet contains 2-5 green florets subtended by two glumes which have scabrous (minute teeth) keels. The florets are densely hairy on their keeled backs and have a tangled ‘web’ of fine hairs at their base.

Habitat:

Mainly a grass of lawns, gardens and wasteland but is sometimes found fringing freshwater lakes and streams. Appears to withstand some short-period waterlogging.

Region	Salinity Class	Waterlogging Class
Central and Northern, Western, Gippsland	S0	W0, W1, W2

Comments:

Poa is a large world-wide grass genus with at least 30 species, both native and introduced, represented in Victoria. Regarded as a valuable pasture and fodder species in the northern hemisphere but only sown in Australia as a lawn and sport’s turf grass. Kentucky Blue-grass is similar to but larger in growth than Annual Poa (Poa annua).

Kentucky Blue-grass photos

Kentucky Blue-grass flower-head
Photo: A J Brown

Flowers of Kentucky Blue-grass with exserted stigmas
Photo: A J Brown

Leaf tip of Kentucky Blue-grass
Photo: A J Brown

Kentucky Blue-grass spikelets
Photo: A J Brown

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