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.