Data provided by the participants of the Consortium of California Herbaria

View additional distribution information on the Jepson eflora

Poa cusickii is a species of grass known by the common name Cusick's bluegrass. It is native to western North America from Yukon to Colorado to eastern California, where it grows in many types of habitat, including high mountain meadows and slopes, sagebrush scrub, and forests. It is a perennial grass growing dense, sometimes large, clumps up to about 60 centimeters in maximum height. The narrow leaves are firm and sometimes rolled along the edges. The longest leaves are located around the middle of the stem. The flower cluster is a dense, narrow series of overlapping branches bearing up to 100 spikelets in total. The grass is dioecious, with male and female individuals producing different types of flowers in their flower clusters. The plant often reproduces vegetatively via tillers, or via apomixis with unfertilized seeds, and some populations are made up only of female individuals. One subspecies, ssp. purpurascens, is all female.

Plant type

Grass

Calscape icon
Color

Brown

Sun

Full Sun, Partial Shade

Site type

Meadows

Plant communities

Alpine Fell-Fields, Subalpine Forest

Caterpillars
Butterflies

Butterflies and moths supported

0 confirmed and 17 likely

Confirmed Likely

Common Roadside-Skipper

Amblyscirtes vialis

Glassy Borer

Apamea devastator

Snowy-veined Apamea Moth

Apamea niveivenosa

Sachem

Atalopedes campestris