Genera of Poaceae. Agrostis. When you see a grass with a big open panicle like this (left) with tiny spikelets that look as if they might contain just 1 floret (right), your mind should turn to the genus Agrostis.
Agrostis is fiddly because the flowers are so small and tricky because it is essential that you bring back the underground parts from the field. You need to dissect the spikelt and expose the lamma and, crucially, the palea
Then, with some carefully cleaned underground parts, you need to say whether the plant has rhizomes (left) or stolons (right).
The purpose of dissecting the spikelet is so that you can establish whether the palea is large or small relative to the lemma. In Agrostis, both these tissues are flimsy and delicate, so you need to practice how to tease them aopart without tearing them.
The key question is what constitutes a large or a small palea ? On the left is a big palea (more than 2/5 of the lemma) and on the right a small one (less than 2/5; sorry I don't have a better image for this).
The size of the ligule is very useful: this can be huge (left) or nondescript (right).
In summary, the key feature of Agrostis is that the spikelets have just one bisexual floret and nothing else. The glumes are so large that they conceal the floret entirely. Told from Polypogon (left) by the smooth surface of the glume in Agrostis (right)
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This is what Ashurst looks like in a ‘ragwort year’. There are more than 10 flowering individuals per square metre.
This is what Ashurst looks like this year (1 August 2023). There’s not a single ragwort plant in sight.
So what is going on ? Between 1980 and 2019 ragwort numbers fluctuated dramatically but there were no extended periods of very low plant densities (less than 1 m-2). Since 2020 we’ve seen 4 consecutive years with exceptionally low numbers.
Identifying rushes. The three annual species of Section Tenageia can be tricky to tell apart. The common species is Juncus bufonius (left) and the two rarer species are J. foliosus (upper right) and J. ranarius (lower right).
They all have flat or inrolled bifacial (grass-like) leaves on the stem (the basal leaves are typically withered by flowering time). The diffuse panicle is interspersed with leaf-like bracts and each flower has 2 small bracteoles.
Juncus foliosus is the easiest to identify: its leaves are more than 1.5mm wide (left) and the seeds have longitudinal ridges (x20, right A).
Identifying rushes. The reason why our 31 Juncus spp. are so tricky to identify is that the genus is so complicated botanically. It’s worth starting by looking at each of the 10 Sections that are represented in UK, just so that you can see the issues involved.
Identifying grasses. It’s obviously a Brome, but which Brome is it ? First, we need to identify the genus (i.e. is it Bromus, or Bromopsis, or Anisantha or Ceratochloa ?). This is the lower half of Key H on p. 1033.
#6 Are the lemmas strongly keeled on the back (left) or not (right). Definitely not keeled, so on to #7
#7 Always a tricky one. Annual or perennial? Look at the roots and check for the absence of rhizomes. See if there are any non-flowering shoots. No rhizomes and no sterile shoots, so annual is the best bet. On to #10.
Seaside Grass Quiz. This is arranged by habitat (sand-dune, dune slack, rocks & shingle, cliff and tidal mud-flat) then by plant size within habitat (big, medium, small). Answers tomorrow.
Grass revision quiz. Waterside and wetland grasses. The are just 10 species in this quiz, reflecting the ecological fact that rushes, sedges and other Cyperaceae are more numerous than grasses in this habitat.