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Poa annua
Also called Annual bluegrass, Annual Poa, Winter Grass, Annual Meadowgrass, Dwarf Meadowgrass
Poa annua is a low, tufted grass that forms much of the turf in lawns, golf greens and waste ground in temperate regions. It is usually an annual, though perennial forms exist; the key to growing it is cool, moist conditions, since it dislikes heat and drought.
Poa annua, or annual meadow grass (known in America more commonly as annual bluegrass or simply poa), is a widespread low-growing turfgrass in temperate climates. Notwithstanding the reference to annual plant in its name, perennial biotypes do exist.
It originated as an allopolyploid hybrid between Poa supina and Poa infirma. Major chromosomal rearrangements after polyploidy have contributed to variation in genome size in Poa annua.
It is a common weed of cultivation, known in the Americas as annual bluegrass. It occurs as a common constituent of lawns, where it is also often treated as a weed, and grows on waste ground. Many golf putting greens, including the Oakmont Country Club greens, are annual bluegrass, although many courses have converted to creeping bentgrass (Agrostis stolonifera).
Texas bluegrass · Arctic bluegrass · Fowl bluegrass · Smooth Meadow-grass · Sandberg bluegrass · Bluegrass
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Poa annua 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.
