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San Bernardino bluegrass

Poa atropurpurea

San Bernardino bluegrass
Photo: Chelsea Vollmer, Public domain

San Bernardino bluegrass is a rare, rhizomatous perennial grass that forms small loose tufts in wet mountain meadows of southern California. It is federally listed as endangered and is grown mainly for conservation or specialist native plantings rather than as a common garden plant.

Family
Poaceae (Grass family)
Grows as
Grass
Light
Full sun, Part shade
Water
Keep the soil consistently moist, as it grows naturally in wet meadows.
Soil
Moist, fertile loam or meadow soil with good drainage
Temperature
10–24 °C; tolerates cool montane winters
How easy
Hard
Native range
S. California
Climate
temperate

About

Poa atropurpurea is a rare species of grass known by the common name San Bernardino bluegrass. It is endemic to southern California, where it is known from two regions, the San Bernardino Mountains near Big Bear and the Laguna Mountains of San Diego County.

Where it grows

In the San Bernardino Mountains the grass occurs in the pebble plain habitat near Big Bear with other rare plant species. In San Diego County the grass has been observed on Palomar Mountain and in the meadows of Mount Laguna. There are fewer than twenty populations of this grass in existence and it is a federally listed endangered species of the United States.

Other Poa plants

Catalina grass · Catalina grass · Short bluegrass · Limestone Cushion Poa · Poa acinaciphylla · Grass Lane Cove River · Alpigene Bluegrass · Alpine bluegrass · Grove bluegrass · Hartz's Bluegrass · Narrow-leaved meadow-grass · Annual Meadow Grass

Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Poa atropurpurea 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.

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