Description :

• Annual or perennial, tufted or decumbent, sometimes rhizomatous, stoloniferous, sometimes geniculate
• Leaf blade expanded, rolled or folded; apex often boat-shaped; ligule an unfringed or rarely a fringed membrane
• Inflorescence a panicle, open and often effuse or contracted; spikelets solitary, pedicelled, pedicels swollen at apex
• Spikelets 3-6 mm long, laterally compressed, disarticulating above glumes, sometimes viviparous; glumes usually ± equal, rarely unequal, shorter than spikelet, similar, membranous, ovate or oblong, acute to obtuse, with median keel, awnless, mucronate or rarely awned; lower glume 1-3-nerved; upper glume usually 3-nerved
• Florets 2-6, bisexual or uppermost reduced; lemmas decreasing in size upwards, similar in texture to glumes, membranous, lanceolate or oblong, obtuse or subacute, 5-7(-11)-nerved, entire, median-keeled, keel glabrous or hairy, especially towards base, usually awnless, rarely mucronate or awned; callus often with long woolly hairs; palea subequalling lemma, 2-keeled, thinner in texture than lemma
• Lodicules 2, ± 2-lobed
• Stamens 3
• Ovary glabrous; styles distinct, plumose
• Caryopsis ellipsoid to ovoid
• x = 7 (aneuploids, high polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Poa L.
  • Linnaeus: 67 (1753)
  • Stapf: 711 (1900)
  • Stent: 302 (1924)
  • Chippindall: 51 (1955)
  • Clayton: 43 (1970)
  • Launert: 152 (1970)
  • Launert: 47 (1971)
  • Edmondson: 159 (1980)
  • Clayton & Renvoize: 101 (1986)
  • Gibbs Russell et al.: 270 (1990)
  • Watson & Dallwitz: 748 (1994)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species ± 500, cosmopolitan
• Southern Africa : Species 6, widespread