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Poa alpina
Also called Alpine Meadow Grass, Alpine Speargrass, Bluegrass, Mountain Speargrass
Alpine bluegrass (Poa alpina) is a perennial grass of cool, temperate and mountain regions across the Northern Hemisphere. It is grown mainly for ornamental or lawn and meadow use, and it reproduces partly by producing plantlets instead of seeds.
Poa alpina, commonly known as alpine meadow-grass or alpine bluegrass, is a species of grass with a primarily holarctic distribution.
It is noted for being pseudoviviparous: in place of seeds, it sometimes reproduces asexually, creating new plantlets in the spikelets. The plantlets represent a developmental change following sexual reproduction, as the spikelet apical meristems revert to vegetative growth following the production of floral tissue, producing an axis with true leaves. These plantlets can produce roots and fall off, but typically their growth on the mother plant and the senescence of the main stem makes the entire structure lean over and touch the ground, where the mass of plantlets and roots can establish together. This vegetative reproduction mechanism is thought to be an advantage in variable alpine environments where pollination and sexual reproduction is inconsistent.
Catalina grass · Catalina grass · Short bluegrass · Limestone Cushion Poa · Poa acinaciphylla · Grass Lane Cove River · Alpigene Bluegrass · Grove bluegrass · Hartz's Bluegrass · Narrow-leaved meadow-grass · Annual Meadow Grass · Texas bluegrass
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Poa alpina by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
