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.