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According to Peeters (2004) and with additional material from Hubbard (1968), P. pratense is a tall, tufted or single-stemmed, short-lived, cool-season perennial grass. The plant is robust, hairless and caespitose. Stems are erect, 20-100(-150) cm tall, often bulging at the base and forming a small bulb. The blade is rolled when young, large (3-10 mm wide), flat, slightly rough on the margin, rather long (reaching 45 cm), pale green to greyish green. The ligule is strong, obtuse and white, and there are no auricles. The spike-like panicle is cylindrical, 6-20(-30) cm long. Spikelets are 1-flowered, breaking up at maturity above the glumes. Glumes persistent, narrowly oblong, truncate, keeled, 3-nerved, the keels fringed with soft spreading hairs and produced at the tip into a rigid awn 1-2 mm long. Lemma and palea one-third to three-quarters the length of the glumes. Anthers 2 mm long. Seeds are small, 2 mm long, with a 1000-seed weight of 0.3 to 0.7 g. P. pratense produces few tillers (4000 to 10,000 tillers/m?) compared to perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne, 6000 to 15,000 tillers/m?). However, leaves are produced at a slightly faster rate than in perennial ryegrass, and the maximum number of leaves per tiller is up to 6-7 (rarely 8) against only 3 for the ryegrass. Leaf lifetime is also longer, so that timothy is able to accumulate a lot of standing biomass before senescence commences.

Related invasive species

  • Lolium

Related Farm Practice

  • Thinning
  • Rolling
  • Bulbs
  • Materials
Has Cabi datasheet ID
40248
Oss tagged
x

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