Water-bent

Polypogon viridis is a perennial grass of the Poaceae family growing 20-80 cm tall in loose clumps from a shortly creeping or stoloniferous rhizomatous base that often roots freely at the lower nodes. Culms are slender, geniculately ascending or erect, smooth and several-noded. Leaf blades are flat, linear, 5-20 cm long and 2-6 mm wide, scaberulous on the upper surface and margins; leaf sheaths are smooth and rounded, the upper one often somewhat inflated. The ligule is a conspicuously elongated obtuse to truncate, slightly torn membrane 3-6 mm long. The inflorescence is a contracted to slightly open panicle 4-15 cm long, dense and lobed with somewhat whorled (verticillate) branches, frequently pale green to silvery-green and tinged purple at maturity. Spikelets are very small, 1.5-2 mm long, one-flowered, lanceolate, breaking up above the persistent glumes. Glumes are subequal, lanceolate, slightly scabrid on the keel, and shortly mucronate but unawned (distinguishing this species from the closely related awned P. monspeliensis). The lemma is small, hyaline, three-nerved and unawned. Native to the Mediterranean region, western Asia and parts of Africa and now widely naturalised in temperate and warm-temperate damp habitats worldwide.