Single Record
Participant Info
- Species
- Poa pratensis [Paneion pratense] [Poa angustifolia subsp. pratensis] [Poa agassizensis]
- Family
- Poaceae
- CommonName
- Kentucky bluegrass, bluegrass, sweet meadow-grass
- Presence
- yes
- Status
- native, exotic
- EarliestDate
- 1896
- LatestDate
- 2024
- Ecosystem
- basin, shrubland, foothill, montane, subalpine, tundra, ruderal, urban
- Geobotanical
- SSawatch, Garitas, SSanjuans, Culebras, NCristos, UBasin, LBasin
- Counties
- Alamosa, Conejos, Costilla, Hinsdale, Mineral, Rio Grande, Saguache, Archuleta
- Passes
- Cumbres, Elwood, Wolf Creek
- WildlifePreserves
- Baca
- Other Localities
- PhotoRecords
- Comments
- NEED IN SITU PHOTOS. In the northern hemisphere, Poa pratensis circles the globe. In the Watershed, Kentucky bluegrass may be both native and introduced. It is by far the most vouchered grass, found from upland pastures (including in the tundra) to street sides, where it has escaped from seeded lawns. In the USA, P. pratensis is present in every state, least common in the Gulf states. It follows the Rio Grande drainage through New Mexico to the Big Bend country of Texas. Note that P. pratensis has strong rhizomes whereas its common sympatric P. palustris does not. For a turf grass often kept a lowly two inches high, P. pratensis has astonishing genetic capabilities: "a highly polymorphic, facultatively apomictic species, having what is probably the most extensive series of polyploid chromosome numbers of any species in the world" (FNa, 2025).
- Annotation