Poa cusickii

Cusick's bluegrass

Family: Poaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Cusick's bluegrass is a native perennial grass found in alpine and subalpine meadows at high elevations. Flowering from June to August, this plant produces delicate, compact grass flower clusters in a lanceolate to ovate inflorescence. Growing in dense tufted clumps 10 to 60 centimeters tall, it forms tight clusters with slender, ascending stems. Its leaf blades are narrow, generally 0.5 to 1 millimeter wide, firm and often tightly inrolled, with fine hairs on the upper surface. The plant exhibits a distinctive semi-dioecious characteristic, with small fertile anthers 2 to 3.5 millimeters long.

California counties: Fresno, Plumas, Lassen, Modoc, Alpine, Mono, Trinity, El Dorado, Amador, Nevada, Tuolumne, Tulare, Sierra, Inyo

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.