While it is fairly large in size, this woodland bluegrass has a delicate appearance with airy panicles of spikelets. In general, the Poa spp. (Bluegrasses) are difficult to identify. Most guides distinguish different species of bluegrass by the appearance of their lemmas – in particular, the presence or absence of fine hairs at the base of the lemma and along its veins. This requires a hand lens with about 10x magnification, and even then it can be difficult to discern these hairs. In this regard, the lemmas of Woodland Bluegrass are hairier than most other species in this genus; each of its lemmas has fine hairs at the base and along all of the veins (at least along the lower half of the lemma). Some other distinguishing characteristics of this species include the following: 1) the blades of its leaves are wider (up to 6 mm.) than those of many other bluegrasses, and 2) the widely spreading branchlets of its panicles have a tendency to hang downward with age (particularly the lower ones). Other bluegrasses have branchlets that are ascending to spreading and they don't hang downward at maturity.