Poa cusickii |
Poa alsodes |
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Cusick's bluegrass |
grove blue grass |
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Habit | Plants perennial; usually densely tufted, rarely moderately densely tufted, usually neither rhizomatous nor stoloniferous, infrequently short-rhizomatous or stoloniferous, rarely with distinct rhizomes. | Plants perennial; not rhizomatous, not stoloniferous, loosely tufted. | ||||||||||||
Culms | 10-60(70) cm tall, 0.5-1.8 mm thick, erect or the bases decumbent, terete or weakly compressed; nodes terete, 0-2 exserted. |
31-126 cm. |
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Sheaths | closed for 1/4-3/4 their length, terete, smooth or scabrous, glabrous, bases of basal sheaths glabrous, distal sheath lengths 1.6-10 times blade lengths; collars smooth or scabrous, glabrous; ligules of cauline leaves 1-3(6) mm, smooth or scabrous, truncate to acute, ligules of the innovation leaves 0.2-0.5(2.5) mm, scabrous, usually truncate; innovation blades sometimes distinctly different from the cauline blades, 0.5-2 mm wide, involute, moderately thick, moderately firm, adaxial surfaces usually densely scabrous or hispidulous to softly puberulent, infrequently nearly smooth and glabrous; cauline blades subequal or the midcauline blades longest or the blades gradually reduced in length distally, 0.5-3 mm wide, flat, folded, or involute, usually thin, usually withering, abaxial surfaces smooth or scabrous, apices narrowly to broadly prow-shaped, flag leaf blades 0.5-5(6) cm. |
closed for 1/2 - 7/8 their length; ligules 0.1-1.7(2.1) mm, smooth or sparsely scabrous, truncate to obtuse; blades 0.8-4.1 mm wide, flat, lax. |
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Basal branching | intravaginal or intra- and extravaginal. |
mainly pseudointravaginal. |
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Panicles | 2-10(12) cm, usually erect, contracted or loosely contracted, narrowly lanceoloid to ovoid, congested or moderately congested, with 10-100 spikelets and 1-3(5) branches per node; branches 0.5-4(5) cm, erect or steeply ascending, fairly straight, slender to stout, terete to angled, smooth or scabrous, with 1-15 spikelets. |
11.4-36 cm, erect or lax, narrowly pyramidal, usually open, infrequently contracted; nodes with (2)3-5(7) branches; branches spreading, straight, angled, angles sparsely to moderately scabrous. |
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Spikelets | (3)4-10 mm, lengths to 3 times widths, broadly lanceolate to narrowly ovate, laterally compressed, not sexually dimorphic; florets 2-6; rachilla internodes 0.5-1.2 mm, smooth or scabrous. |
3.5-6.7 mm, laterally compressed; florets 2-4; rachilla internodes glabrous. |
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Glumes | lanceolate, distinctly keeled; lower glumes 3-veined, distinctly shorter than the lowest lemmas; calluses glabrous or diffusely webbed, hairs less than 1/4 the lemma length; lemmas (3)4-7 mm, lanceolate to broadly lanceolate, distinctly keeled, membranous to thinly membranous, smooth or sparsely to densely scabrous, glabrous or the keels and/or marginal veins puberulent proximally, lateral veins obscure to prominent, margins glabrous, apices acute; palea keels scabrous, intercostal regions glabrous; anthers vestigial (0.1-0.2 mm), aborted late in development, or 2-3.5 mm. |
ovate, distinctly keeled, keels scabrous; lower glumes 1-veined; upper glumes shorter than or subequal to the lowest lemmas; calluses webbed; lemmas 2.7-4.2(5) mm, lanceolate, distinctly keeled, keels short-villous to about midlength, marginal and lateral veins glabrous, lateral veins obscure or moderately prominent, intercostal regions glabrous, smooth, apices acute; paleas glabrous or ciliolate over the keels, apices finely scabrous; anthers 0.4-0.8 mm. |
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2n | = 28, 28+11, 56, 56+11, 59, ca. 70. |
= unknown. |
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Poa cusickii |
Poa alsodes |
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Distribution |
CA; CO; ID; MT; ND; NV; OR; UT; WA; WY; AB; BC; MB; SK; YT
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CT; DE; IL; IN; KY; MA; MD; ME; MI; MN; NC; NH; NJ; NY; OH; PA; SC; TN; VA; VT; WI; WV; NB; NS; ON; PE; QC
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Discussion | Poa cusickii grows in rich meadows in sagebrush scrub to rocky alpine slopes, from the southwestern Yukon Territory to Manitoba and North Dakota, south to central California and eastern Colorado. It is gynodioecious or dioecious. Sexually reproducing plants of Poa cusickii subspp. cusickii and pallida grow in different geographic areas, but pistillate plants of these two subspecies have overlapping ranges. Only pistillate plants are known in Poa cusickii subspp. epilis and purpurascens. All the alpine plants studied were pistillate. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Poa alsodes grows in mesic woodlands of eastern Canada and the northeastern United States, extending south to Illinois, Tennessee, and North Carolina, particularly in the Appalachian Mountains. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
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Key |
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Source | FNA vol. 24, p. 559. | FNA vol. 24. | ||||||||||||
Parent taxa | Poaceae > subfam. Pooideae > tribe Poeae > Poa > subg. Poa > sect. Madropoa > subsect. Epiles | Poaceae > subfam. Pooideae > tribe Poeae > Poa > subg. Poa > sect. Sylvestres | ||||||||||||
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Name authority | Vasey | A. Gray | ||||||||||||
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