Crackenedge, Dewsbury

'Grasses in the Rain'

Saturday 15th June 2024

Leader: Andrew Kafel

Number of attendees: 13

We returned to the site of our 2017 visit, to look at the late spring (rather than late summer) flora. The main purpose of the trip was to study the various grasses which inhabit this diverse area of acidic and neutral grassland.

After getting away from the roadside, Andrew used some readily available specimens to show us some useful identification features to look for on a grass, such as what the ligule looks like, whether the inflorescence is a spike, or is branched, and whether any branching is whorled or irregular. Some species used to illustrate these features included Meadow Foxtail (Alopecurus pratensis), Yorkshire-fog (Holcus lanatus), Crested Dog's-tail (Cynosurus cristatus), Cock's-foot (Dactylis glomerata), Rough Meadow-grass (Poa trivialis), Perennial Rye-grass (Lolium perenne) and Red Fescue (Festuca rubra).

Andrew showed us some things to look for:

Yorkshire Fog has no rhizomes (creeping underground stems), and can therefore form dense tufts, whereas the similar species Creeping Soft Grass (Holcus mollis) has long rhizomes, forming extensive patches of loosely spaced shoots.

Perennial Rye-grass has the lower glume present only in the terminal spikelet - the rest of the spikelets only have one glume present.

Red Fescue has very short awns on the lemmas and very narrow basal leaves.

Tall Fescue (Schedonorus arundinaceus) much has longer awns and wider leaves in comparison with Red Fescue.

Crested Dog's-tail has wiry stems and often gets left by grazing animals because of this.

As we walked around this open area overlooking Dewsbury, we came across many other grasses. These included Wavy Hair Grass (Avenella flexuosa) with its wavy flower stems and Tufted Hair-grass (Deschampsia cespitosa) which grows tall in tufts and looks so elegant that they are included in garden plantings.

The differences between Meadow Foxtail and Timothy (Phleum pratense) were talked about, as they look similar. This included the different times of flowering (Meadow Foxtail early and Timothy later). Timothy also has a firmer feel to it and has “Awns that look like Horns” (lens needed to see this) i.e. it has awns on the glumes, so that each spikelet looks like it has a pair of horns.

Squirreltail Fescue (Vulpia bromoides), likes dry, well-drained ground (Andrew found some on a slope), is very small and the flower head is well above the highest leaf.

Six-rowed Barley (Hordeum vulgare) was well-spotted by a member of the group, which we compared to Wall Barley (Hordeum murinum) which was also found. Andrew pointed out the differences between these and Two-rowed Barley (Hordeum distichon), which wasn’t found, describing how the spikelets are arranged on the stem.

Recordings of non-grass plants were made including Darwin's Barberry (Berberis darwinii), Oval Sedge (Carex leporina), Hjelmqvist's Cotoneaster (Cotoneaster hjelmqvistii), Prickly Heath (Gaultheria mucronata), Walnut (Juglans regia), Field Wood-rush (Luzula campestris), Rum Cherry (Prunus serotina), Mountain Currant (Ribes alpinum), and Himalayan Bramble (Rubus armeniacus 'Himalayan Giant').  In all Andrew recorded 130 taxa.

The walk finished earlier than normal due to the persistent rain. We completed the walk wet-though, but more knowledgeable. Many thanks to Andrew for passing on some of his expertise to the learners on the walk.

Text and photographs by Ian D