5
they are up to 2 mm long. If they are
up to 6 mm long you have one of the
first two cat's-tails I mentioned.
You can see now why grass hunters carry
a ruler!
One grass which is easily identified
by its overall appearance is the York-
shire fog, Holcus lanatus. This has a
soft, purplish look with hairs all over
the stem, unlike its relation the
creeping soft grass, Holcus mollis,
which only has tufts of hairs at the
nodes where the leaf-sheaths arise.
Grasses have a unique beauty which
can be preserved by pressing them and
this can easily be done between news-
papers under the carpet. Some of them
can be preserved indoors however,
without pressing them, for instance,
the tufted hair grass, Deschampsia
caespitosa. It can be recognised by
the shining appearance of the spikelets
and is typically found in marshy fields
growing in large tufts. We also found
a related species called the wavy hair
grass, Deschampsia flexuosa. This was
in a drier part of Thorndon Park where
we walked in the afternoon. This
species can be recognised by the zig-
zag nature of some of the branches
bearing the spikelets.
During lunch on this very hot day
we had time to think just how much our
civilisation depends on these plants,
and that it only developed once we
settled down to grow wheat.