# Grassy weed ID: looks like Triv, but doesn't have stolons?



## kbgisbestbg (9 mo ago)

Hi TLF. Long-time lurker who is in the first spring of a fall reno (SSS sunny mix: majority KBG, with some PRG/FF as well). Thanks for all you taught me.

As I'm nursing my grass through its first spring, I've been hand-pulling random weeds that are popping up. There aren't too many, but this grassy weed is showing up in a few places. From everything I can tell, it is poa trivialis, but for the life of me, I haven't been able to find any stolons whatsoever. Any idea what it could be?

Traits listed below, with picture link after:


Much lighter than surrounding grass
No auricles
Short, pointed ligule
Single prominent mid-rib with no veins (as seen by my eye; some veins appear to show up with phone)
Keeled tip
Folded vernation/flat stems
Slightly-shiny underside
Grows faster than KBG/PRG surrounding it
Growing in an area that gets 4-6 hours of full sun per day
No seedheads at all, unlike poa annua
Wrinkled leaf blades, like poa annua
Grows kind of like crabgrass: stems grow out out from center 2-6" and then eventually point up
When performing string test, leaf blade usually breaks with no strings, but occasionally has three equidistant strings show up and no others (picture in link below showing this)
Sometimes has reddish-purple roots



http://imgur.com/lIHI9Vy

 (It's giving me an adult content warning for some reason; I promise you that it's just pictures of grassy weeds)


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## 2L8 (Mar 18, 2019)

If you sowed the lawn last fall, then the plants are only a few months old. Then the features are often not yet very pronounced. Stolons form later on Poa trivialis, I would not expect any on young seedlings.

I am in the same situation here, and find seedlings of Poa annua and trivialis in the lawn from last fall/summer. However, on Poa trivialis I find clearly shiny leaf undersides even as a young plant and Poa annua almost always has seed heads. Poa annua is very variable in appearance. Maybe you have an ecotype that has little flowering. When in doubt, I distinguish between the two by the glossiness of the leaf undersides. So I tend to Poa annua, but not shure. Anyway, both have to be removed.

About the purple base: Maybe a PRG seedling was mixed in. That's not typical for Poa.

Funny, I also get an adult content warning. Your grass is not for the eyes of children.


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## kbgisbestbg (9 mo ago)

2L8 said:


> If you sowed the lawn last fall, then the plants are only a few months old. Then the features are often not yet very pronounced. Stolons form later on Poa trivialis, I would not expect any on young seedlings.
> 
> I am in the same situation here, and find seedlings of Poa annua and trivialis in the lawn from last fall/summer. However, on Poa trivialis I find clearly shiny leaf undersides even as a young plant and Poa annua almost always has seed heads. Poa annua is very variable in appearance. Maybe you have an ecotype that has little flowering. When in doubt, I distinguish between the two by the glossiness of the leaf undersides. So I tend to Poa annua, but not shure. Anyway, both have to be removed.
> 
> ...


Thank you! That was super helpful. So 99% chance it's triv, just young triv.

Time to hand pull even more aggressively!


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