''Poa cookii'', sometimes called Cook's tussock-grass or bluegrass, is a species of tussock grass native to various subantarctic islands. The

specific epithet In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...

honours British explorer

James Cook James Cook (7 November 1728 Old Style date: 27 October – 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the British Royal Navy, famous for his three voyages between 1768 and 1779 in the Pacific Ocean an ...

who visited the Kerguelen Islands in 1776.

Description

''Poa cookii '' is a deep green, perennial, gynomonoecious grass growing as densely clumped tussocks up to 800 mm in height, with the fibres from older leaf-sheaths forming a tangled mass at the base of the plant. It is a smaller plant than ''

Poa foliosa ''Poa foliosa'' is a species of tussock grass commonly known as muttonbird poa. It is native to the subantarctic islands of New Zealand and Australia. Description ''Poa foliosa'' is a perennial, dioecious grass growing as densely clumped tusso ...

'' with which it may grow. The grass flowers from November to February.

Distribution and habitat

The grass is found on the Prince Edward, Crozet, Heard and

Kerguelen Islands The Kerguelen Islands ( or ; in French commonly ' but officially ', ), also known as the Desolation Islands (' in French), are a group of islands in the sub-Antarctic constituting one of the two exposed parts of the Kerguelen Plateau, a large ...

of the southern Indian Ocean, as well as on Australia's Macquarie Island. On Heard it occupies moist and sandy areas along the shore and on peat flats with the cushion plant '' Azorella selago''. On Macquarie it grows on rocky areas along the coast up to 200 m above sea level, on flats and slopes on wet peat and along the edges of creeks, often flourishing in the nutrient-rich soil near

penguin Penguins (order (biology), order List of Sphenisciformes by population, Sphenisciformes , family (biology), family Spheniscidae ) are a group of Water bird, aquatic flightless birds. They live almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere: on ...

colonies where it has a competitive advantage over the dominant ''Poa foliosa''. On Macquarie it has been severely affected by

rabbit Rabbits, also known as bunnies or bunny rabbits, are small mammals in the family Leporidae (which also contains the hares) of the order Lagomorpha (which also contains the pikas). ''Oryctolagus cuniculus'' includes the European rabbit speci ...

grazing.

References

cookii Flora of the Kerguelen Islands Flora of Macquarie Island Flora of the Prince Edward Islands Flora of Heard Island and McDonald Islands Flora of the Crozet Islands Plants described in 1879 {{Pooideae-stub