What a great day for football: all we need is some green grass and a ball.

CC image Rune Mathison / Bitjungle

I can't lie, I have no interest in football at all, but as it's the start of the world cup here's a topical Grass/Football quote for you from Bill Shankly. I discovered I was right in imagining most pitches use the ubiquitous dark green species Lolium perenne (Perennial ryegrass) - but I've been interested to learn that big grounds use an space-age interwoven hybrid of actual grass and artificial fibres. I know, you learn a new thing every day.

I'm now pleased to have 22 species of grass, virtually all from mundane, easily accessible habitats - imagine the variety if you went out and about. It being June I am aware virtually nobody is reading this, which is a shame as I wish I could persuade you to try collecting them too. Yesterday I went to the wood/grassland you much-frequented in your first year and found a few more. I'm still remarkably confused about a couple, but the more I look at, I think the more likely I'll realise what the mystery ones really are (and to realise if I've identified things incorrectly in the past). It starts making me wonder how my brain is picking this up - some of it must be rote learning and repetition, but there's an element of recognising and comparing little characteristics to those of species I already know. No doubt a psychology student could tell you more. I can feel strange things happening in my brain but I'm not sure what they are :)

I found the rather elegant Remote sedge (with spaced-out flowers and long terminal bract). CC image by P Verstichel.

 I was roaming the grassland because one of the lecturers wants an NVC (National Vegetation Classification) category for it: a method you may learn in your future classes. About half the species I found were grasses, and they're essential for an accurate NVC. So if you get good at identifying them, an ecological consultancy would probably be highly impressed at your usefulness (though the adverts I see seem to be obsessed with newts and bats - not that I don't like such charismatic creatures, but the law is highly species-ist, grrr).

Now I must attend to my new specimens and get them pressing.

Plant Detective

I deduce these are actually plastic leaves. Public Domain image.

 Sometimes people send me and Dave photos of mystery plants hoping we'll be able to identify them. Today's email from a student was marked "With High Importance" which made me inwardly groan a little bit. But actually I relish the challenge so I set about looking for clues.

It made me think of the importance of you recording good information in your Field Notebook - out in the field. Some things are really useful to note, and if you forget to, not only might you lose marks, but you're making your life difficult when it comes to identifying your specimens later.

It's a very good thing to take a photo of your specimen in situ - I would feel smug if I ever remembered to do such a thing on one of my lunchtime strolls (I haven't). But it can be hard to capture the habitat with a mere snap. Today's student's blurry plant might have been from the Mint Family (Lamiaceae) - I could just about make out a square furry stem amongst its opposite leaves. But to know whether it was in a damp habitat or a dry one would have been useful - I could have ruled out a number of possible species.  So it's really good if you can describe the habitat in your notebook - what other plants are around? Is it amongst rocks, or in a meadow, or next to a stream, or on the seashore? That would have helped me a lot, and could help you.

Plant with scale (insects, that is). Sorry. CC Gilles San Martin.

 The other thing that irritated me about the photos could have usefully been included was some indication of scale: just putting a pencil or foot in shot gives you a clue to the size of the leaves or other features.

Not always relevant (but sometimes very important) is your sense of smell. Plant-squeezing is one of my go-to clue-finding methods. A mint would be immediately obvious but many plants and flowers smell distinctive. So do some mushrooms (e.g. the ever memorable descriptions of  'wet washing' and 'crab' for certain Russulas). Even some insects exude strong smells which you might later find mentioned in an i-d book.

With "ordinary" plants my first stop is their flowers, and then to look at the shape of the leaves and the pattern they attach to the stem. I read this interesting article by Catherine Stewart describing her own process of identifying mystery plants. But with your own group you'll soon begin to realise their good early diagnostic features. Maybe that'll be behaviour for spiders (is it running across the ground or sitting in a web), or pinnateness for ferns, or general proportions for a snail, or type of fruiting body for a lichen.

This Oil beetle's kinky antennae are a clue to its species. But as with my own photo, there's not enough detail to be sure. CC0 image.

You'll be bringing your specimens home so don't have to worry to much about taking a super clear photo with every detail. Good photos and notes are even more important if you can't. The other week my sister and I found some amazing Oil beetles while out for a walk. I insisted she take some photos so we could report the sighting (there is a dedicated website you know), but I'd forgotten what the beetles' most important features were - so it turned out when I got home that the very bit of the beetle that needed to be in focus was the bit that was blurry. Well, you live and learn.

So when you're out and about collecting, really do take your notebook and note down some clues. Are those lichens only happy on the top of the wall? Are those snails anywhere else but on the tree trunks? Is that grass suspiciously present where dogs wee? (that'll be Wall barley then). Am I repeatedly seeing this seaweed at the same point up the beach? Observations. Think like a detective. You won't remember all this stuff unless you write it down. And the people marking your notebook will love to see it. Every year I read their plaintive calls for field notebooks written actually in the field. They will be desperate to give you some extra marks.

Wall barley (Hordeum murinum) in typically unsalubrious location. CC Stefan Iefnaer.

Gratifyingly, today's Student-with-mystery-plants has just emailed to call me a "bloody miracle worker" for my identifications (let's just hope I'm right).

Using Vernier calipers

You might recognise the contraption above as my self-designed Limpet Height Measurers from your first year trip to Dartmoor (patent still pending). But I also often thrust them upon people who are collecting snails, spiders, beetles and so on, because trying to measure these creatures can be a lot easier with Vernier callipers than grappling with a ruler. Sometimes that's because rulers don't easily fit in petri dishes, or because 3D objects don't easily sit against a ruler, or just because it saves you holding something small and fiddly while trying to squint at a tiny scale at the same time.

The distances between the red arrows above are all the same, though mostly you'll probably be using the bottom left gap (for snail width or spider body length for example). Most of the time you probably won't need the precision of the Vernier scale at all - millimeters being good enough for most things of this nature, but here's a quick reminder of the whole process.

Being a proper scientist you'll be working in mm or cm not inches, so use the scale on the lower side of the calipers. You want to read your distance off against the line above the O (some people get confused and want to read where the gap of the jaws ends).

So this is somewhere between 1.7 and 1.8cm (17 and 18mm), would you agree? That might be good enough for your purposes (if the question in your key is 'Over 15mm or Under 15mm, for example).

But if you did want to know how many bit-ths of a millimeter it was, you must now forget the main scale and scrutinise the 0, 1, 2, 3 etc Vernier scale.

You ask yourself, which of the lines in that scale matches up in a straight line with one of the lines above it? I would say all the ones at either end are quite askew, but the best choice is at 5 and a half - yes?

So that means after our aforemeasured 17mm, there is 0.55 more of a millimeter, making 17.55mm in total.

That would be a bit over the top for most things, but with some groups you might get a key that requires you to know the measurement to the nearest 0.5 of a millimeter (for example, the descriptions of sedges that I was looking at yesterday talk about the leaves being 1.5-2 mm wide, or the fruits being 3.5 to 5mm long).

 There are of course digital Vernier calipers these days, but I ask you, Where is the Fun in That? You wouldn't know if they were lying to you or not. Likewise their batteries are apt to die at the most inopportune moment (and they are always some obscure size of watch battery that you haven't got). It probably seems strange for a technician to be a Luddite (maybe I need to speak to a therapist). But I maintain this is borne of bitter experience: simplicity is often better. Besides, you will learn a skill which you can take satisfaction in. Here endeth the sermon. If you'd like to borrow some calipers do come and ask. I might even lend you the digital ones if you want.

CC image by Lookang

(If you want to know how a Vernier scale works, and who wouldn't, you could do worse than reading this anonymous blogger's website.  Mr Vernier himself was a French mathematician that lived c.1600.)

Sedge enthusiasm

Flea sedge (Carex pulicaris) - do those look like fleas? ew. CC Kristian Peters.

 Campus is deserted and it feels slightly pointless telling you this when you're not here. But on my lunchtime wanderings I found two lovely sedges today which I'm eager to share. My walk took me along the little drainage ditch near the tall student residence blocks. It turned out to be wider than I thought and I got a shoeful of water. Facilities have let swathes of grasses and emergent plants grow along it and it feels rather nice and wild.

These are common species but I hope you will agree, lovely. This is Carex otrubae, False fox sedge.

FFS with its sticky-out long bracts. CC Stefan.lefnaer

 It has very three-angled stems in typical sedge style. All the male and female flowers are together, so the chunky spikelets (the groups of flowers) all look the same.

CC BY-NC-SA Rhiannon

Here you can see the utricles (the nutlike fruits) in closeup - in this species they're greeny-brown.

But for something a little more striking you want the other Carex I found - Common sedge, or Carex nigra. 

CC BY-NC-SA Rhiannon. You too can borrow this super microscope camera.

If the super stripey utricles on this don't convert you to the cult of sedges, then nothing will. (I won't be offended, honestly, but what's not to like). There's another species called Carnation sedge which is said to have tempting-sounding fat 'chocolate and lime' fruits. But I think these nice flattened green and black fruits are even better.

The arrangement of the flowers is different in this species - the fluffier male flowers are all in a bunch and the top, and there are several all-female utricled inflorescences below.

CC image by Matti Vertala

I also found a 'Spike rush' (Eleocharis - they were everywhere, I had no idea) and a Rush. You need to be able to visit a variety of soils and habitats, but I think Sedges and friends would make a very nice if unusual collection. It's not one of the usual choices so I'd send Katy a message first if you choose it.

More on grasses (and some quizzes)

Upright brome (with its "camel's eyelashes") cheekily taken from DP's quiz below (in a spirit of promotion).

It's a strange thing but after repeated efforts at grasses over the years, it seems I've reached some sort of breakthrough and am starting to feel some sort of familiarity with them. I hope this pleasant sensation is something you will also feel when you've spent a bit of time on your taxonomic collection.

The video below stars the author of the excellent "Field Guide to Grasses, Sedges and Rushes", Dominic Price. He's very good at showing you the distinctive characteristics of the plants. The video concentrates on meadow species and I was pleased to recognise most of them (and have taken copious notes :).

His charity, the Species Recovery Trust, have devised some identification quizzes on Buzzfeed (usually the preserve of 'Pick eight noodle dishes and we'll tell you when you'll get married' type fodder).

This one is on grasses (I got 77% right and felt rather chuffed).

There's also one on sedges  (Only 57% but that wasn't a massive surprise - I need to go and find some sedges and get back into them. They are lovely with their little utricles, don't you know).

For people who are doing winter twigs - you'll be delighted there is one for those too. 
I only got 70% right but after all the work on your tree collection I'm sure you will do better than that. It's rather good because it has questions on whole tree shapes, twig features and also just buds.

Keep Off The Grass

Phleum grasses are distinctive for their ROCK horns. CC Matt Lavin and AJC1.

 This is a funny time of year in my job. Most students have disappeared and I have time to do some of the interesting things that fall by the wayside during term-time. But it takes adjustment to get used to the freedom, and I actually find the campus a bit depressing when it's so quiet. So instead of sitting at my desk eating seaweed (my latest exotic find in the SU shop) I have been trying to maintain liveliness by going for a walk at lunchtime.

I took a plastic bag today for collecting things. Taxonomic collection rule number 1: Always have your bag or pot. I saw lots of grasses. They're probably responsible for all this sneezing going on at the moment so I considered it revenge to pick them. This is a great time of year for a grass collection since they're in flower - you certainly don't want to do yourself in by trying to identify them without their flowers.

Taxonomic collection rule number 2: Ignore everybody else. I was standing motionless staring into a big bed of wildflowers, looking for grasses. A student walked near me singing to himself - then he clocked me and presumably felt embarrassed for himself, and also maybe bemused for me because I looked quite strange standing there clutching my plastic bag of vegetation. "All right?" (he had to repeat this as I usually expect my strange aspect to deter communication). "Yes, I'm all right? Are you all right?" "Yes." It made me laugh anyway. So definitely don't worry about looking weird. If anybody's actually paying attention they'll probably be too awkward to ask you what you're doing anyway.

Old skool botanising, same as it ever was. CC Wellcome Images.

So get this - I found 16 species of grasses (Poaceae family) just wandering round campus. I was surprised there were so many. Imagine the marvellousness of your collection if you started grasses now, and went to different habitats and collected even more. It would have the potential to be truly marvellous wouldn't it. Well, I would be impressed at least.

I brought my haul back to the lab and was pleasantly surprised at how many I knew. Maybe this knowledge has been seeping into me slowly over the years. You see, there is hope even with apparently off-putting groups like grasses. Like anything, if you get to know the common species, you'll naturally begin to spot when something's odd and different.

And if you're in a particular habitat, there will be a certain range of species you're likely to find, which helps with identification too. I was on the MSc field trip last week to Steart Marshes, which has lots of developing salt marsh. I brought back two special salt marsh species from there (though there were more... collecting just wasn't on the top of my mind).

Botanists pressing plants in the field - yeah fine in Mexico where it doesn't rain :) CC Alan Harper.

I've pressed my finds and I'm hoping to mount them - but I'm in a good position because I already know what I'm looking at. If you've collected grasses you really want to identify them while they're still fresh, because their identification features include membranous ligules and leaf width - things that will unhelpfully shrivel when pressed. You can keep your finds in a plastic bag for a while in the fridge until you've sorted them out.

It would also be really useful to take photos or sketches of your plants in the field, as the "look" of grasses can be quite distinctive when they're en masse - sometimes they look much more shimmery or brightly coloured in the field, and that can help with identification.

If grasses take your fancy this fold-out guide is a good and cheap start. I have found Francis Rose's 'Grasses, Rushes and Ferns' the best book - it has detailed illustrations of the spikelets. The latter is super expensive, so do come and borrow one from me. It's too heavy really to carry around though, but I have had much success with Dominic Price's recent 'Field guide to grasses, sedges and rushes', which includes excellent identification Top Tips and lists for particular habitats - I'd recommend it very much.

Nice ligule. CC image by Harry Rose.

Anyway please do ask for for a bit of help if you wish, as it's useful to get some feedback from someone who knows a few species for sure.

Summer encouragement for aspiring botanists

Bees, hoverflies and other pollinators love Asteraceae (this is yarrow). CC image by TJ Gehling.

This year Katy is nobly allowing Taxonomic Collectioning to begin over the summer. This is rather good, as for the super keen it will open a much wider range of collecting options - not least, the chance to get interested in botany. Admittedly ferns and moss and wintery twigs already count as botany - and I like those things for their freakiness. But for the aspiring ecologist, it's a chance to get out and study some Normal Plants.

Last week I spent a happy hour roaming the campus with Student M, in search of plants in the Asteraceae. We found twelve. Considering the slightly eclectic list of 'how many to collect' suggests 8, this sounds like a successful afternoon's work. Of course, there's more to a good mark than finding specimens. But it's a good start. Imagine how many you could find if you kept looking as the months tick on. Impressively many. A mark of 80% beckons, surely.

Smooth hawks-beard (Crepis capillaris). It's not a dandelion. CC image by Jason Hollinger.

Lots of the Asteraceae don't seem very fussy about where they live, so you can find many on neglected bits of urban ground quite easily. We found:
 Groundsel, Ox eye daisy, Daisy, Yarrow, Scentless mayweed, Mugwort, Marsh thistle, Dandelion, Cat's ear, Smooth hawks-beard, Smooth sow-thistle, and Prickly sow-thistle.

If you are a complete beginner then you might feel overwhelmed by the number of unknown plants out there - do you have to identify everything you come across just in case it's Asteraceae? I think No. There's an obvious place you can start. Many Asteraceae have daisy-like flowers, with a ring of flat petals (really flowers in themselves, florets) surrounding a disc of shorter, tube-shaped ones. That means that if you see anything daisy or thistle-like, it's probably going to be Asteraceae. Most have yellow or purple flowers. You can worry about the weirder ones later.

How florets are typically arranged in the Asteraceae (CC image by RoRo).

I suggest you get hold of Francis Rose's 'Wild Flower Key' - I can lend you a copy if you are feeling the pinch of student finances. The drawings are very clear and the book is laid out in families, so all the Asteraceae are together and easily compared.

Once you've got a few common species under your belt, you'll start getting your eye in and soon a weird process will happen where you'll begin to notice if something is new and different, even if previously all "dandelions" looked the same to you.

Sea asters. CC image by Ståle Prestøy

A next step is to scrutinise the descriptions of the other species in the book - when do they flower, and what habitat do they like? I've just been on a field trip to a saltmarsh in Somerset (Steart Marshes - very interesting and with lovely views of the nuclear power station) and Sea asters were just starting to flower. They have purple florets and strangely fleshy leaves - they're a common enough species but you'll have to go to the coast to find one. So if you feel you're not finding anything new, go to a different habitat or wait a while for new species to flower.

But if I've learnt anything from scrutinising last year's marks, it's that you must take your field notebook with you when you're botanising. Take some descriptions of the habitat, draw a few sketches, write down your thoughts about why you're there and why the plants are there. It's easy to forget - but points here can mean the difference between a good mark and an excellent one.

I've previously written more about collecting and preserving Asteraceae, but do feel free to contact me if you want any help. My best and simplest advice is to squash them between labelled sheets of newspaper under a pile of big books. Positioning them on the newspaper can be annoyingly tricky - you want to get all the features displayed somehow. But you have slight lea-way in the first day or two for rearrangement. I had been trying to use a field press but cannot get sufficient squashage for long-term drying.