Poa laxa

Poa laxa, known as lax bluegrass or wavy meadow-grass, is a small alpine perennial bunchgrass in the family Poaceae. It forms loose, low tufts 10-30 cm tall on a fibrous root system without creeping rhizomes. Culms are slender, erect to slightly nodding, glabrous, and bear 2-3 leaves; the leaf blades are flat to slightly folded, soft, 2-8 cm long and 1-3 mm wide, with a prow-shaped tip typical of Poa. The ligule is membranous, 1-3 mm long, somewhat blunt. The inflorescence is an open, lax, often drooping panicle 3-10 cm long with thin, flexible branches in pairs at each node; the common name 'laxa' refers to this loose, nodding form. Spikelets are 3-6 mm long, containing 2-5 florets, often tinged purple-bronze. Glumes are unequal and shorter than the florets; lemmas are pubescent along the keel and lateral veins, with a tuft of cobwebby hairs at the base (the diagnostic 'web'). It grows on cool moist alpine and subalpine cliffs, snow beds, and rock crevices in the mountains of Europe and North America.