Grasses as an idea for a late spring collection

I had an extremely quick mooch about looking for grasses between the car park and the office this morning. I think I found eight grass species with flowers, certainly seven. It was raining when I left the house so I didn't hang about, but I know there are at least two more in the verges there. And down the road there is some limestone grassland and I know there's another species or two there. Plus I've recently seen three more species in a wood. This comes to 15 species already. Fifteen. So if you're looking for some inspiration, grasses could be the thing.

Image by Matt Lavin.

These are my basic grass-collecting tips:

- Ideally visit a number of different habitats - roadsides, woods, the edge of arable fields, meadows, different geology (acid, calcareous), next to the seaside (eg salmarsh, sand dune). That's how you'll get lots of species. And the more species the better.

- Pick stems that are flowering.

- Pick them all the way down to the ground.

- If the leaves at the bottom are different, make sure you get those and make sure you keep them with the right specimen. Attach a label so you know where you got it from. And make some notes in your notebook about where you are. And maybe draw a picture of the grass in situ.

- It doesn't matter if you fold them up to get them into your plastic bag - you're going to have to fold them to get them on a page unless they're very small. But try to fold them cleanly just once or twice.

- You can store them in the fridge (with the bag all tied up) - but try to identify them as soon as possible or the ligules (an important identification feature) may deteriorate.

- Don't forget to write down your thought processes and draw some pictures in your notebook.

- As soon as you've identified them, get them pressing. You can see details here, it's very low tech but it works fine.

I'm not saying they're easy, they're not. But at least you should be able to find a good variety. And that's a good start. You can read some more via the 'Grasses' link on the left. But please do come and see me with a few specimens, and we can look down the microscopes and figure out all the important grass features together.

Wood melick, by Gilles San Martin. Mmmm wood melick, I like this one.

Some of the species I've seen recently:
Wood millet, Milium effusum
Wood melick, Melica uniflora
Cock's foot, Dactylis glomerata
Timothy grass, Phleum pratense
Annual meadow grass, Poa annua
False brome, Brachypodium sylvaticum