piece can grow into a new plant.
Perhaps one of the easiest grasses to
recognise is the cocksfoot Dactylis
glomerata, which has a typical one
sided appearance reminiscent of a
bird's foot. Another one sided grass
is the crested dog's-tail Cynosurus
cristatus, which is very slim unlike
the broadly spreading cocksfoot.
Several grasses have been named after
animal's tails. The first one to
flower in the season is the meadow
foxtail, Alopecurus pratensis, This
has a cylindrical spike covered with
soft hair-like structures called awns.
We only found its dried up remains at
the meeting. The cat's-tail or
Timothy grass, Phleum pratense, has
harder spikes with short rigid awns.
The spikes range from 6-15 centimetres
long which distinguishes them from the
smaller cat's-tail, Phleum bertolonii,
which has spikes ranging from 1-6cms.
long. Both these grasses usually have
swollen bulbous bases to their stems
at ground level. It is worth looking
closely at the cat's-tails in Essex
because the purple stem cat's-tail,
Phleum phleoides, is no longer listed
in the Flora of Essex, although it was
once abundant on Bartlow Hills. Maybe
it still grows in the County. If you
find a cat's-tail without a bulbous
base to its stem then you should
measure its ligules. These structures
are found where the leaf-blade meets
the leaf-sheath, which surrounds the
stem. They are grey and papery in
appearance and in this rare species