Phleum pratense - Timothy-grass

Timothy grass  Phleum pratense

Grass of the Month - July 2010

More grasses at:
http://rainforest-save.blogspot.co.uk/p/grasses.html

Recent (2026) Extra notes on Phleum pratense added at the end:

(a) why is Timothy grass called Timothy Grass

Phleum pratense growing in the thicker soil in the hollow below the limestone slope near the gate at Lower Winskill.

A grass with a spike-like panicle - is it Timothy or is it Meadow Foxtail?

Look at a spikelet.

Foxtail has one fine awn (long hair) per spikelet. Timothy has symmetrical spikelets with two "horns" - The glumes have points and look like "horns" of a devil. 

Phleum does not flower until July, so before July a plant with a spikelike panicle is likely to be Meadow Foxtail

By August nearly all the Meadow Foxtail flowers have fallen off their stem,  or at least are looking very dead.

But how do you separate the shoots vegetatively? - First you can look at May's grass- Meadow foxtail for a good chart comparison

The easiest way is that Timothy is famous for its swollen shoot base, looking something slightly-like an onion.


The picture on the right of a young plant formerly growing by a trampled bridle track shows a not very good onion shoot-base. 

It also shows how the blades can spiral on their own axes, and that the blades are shortish, can stick out at right angles (but later in the year they actually grow upright). 

It shows the blades can be a bluish whitish version of green. It shows that the old basal shoots are a pale fawnish colour (i.e. not dark red or dark brown as sometimes the case in Alopecurus, and not bright yellowy chestnut brown as can occur in Briza)  

But what if you don't want to uproot the plant? In June this year I was surveying some permanent plots in an experiment  in a hay meadow at Colt Park. - One cannot go round digging up plants! I could distinguish both Alopecurus and Phleum  from the other flowerless grasses as they are  larger than other grasses there in the "newest leaf rolled and leaves hairless" category.

This is what I found:-

Look at the back of the base of the blades, at the collar area ( the white line at the base of the blade which has the meristematic (growing) tissue.  Timothy had a wider collar than Meadow Foxtail. Timothy also has a long ligule that is about as long as it is wide. Meadow foxtail has a very short ligule.

Imagine the grass was the other way up so that from the back, the collar area looks like a man's shoulders.

Meadow Foxtail looks like hunched, rounded shoulders.

Timothy's shoulders are held back, as if the person is very proud and confident, or has a coat hanger across his shoulders inside his jacket.

Now if you see me slouching and then suddenly sit up straight, it is not because I am pretending to have a coat hanger across my shoulders - it is because I am pretending to be like Timothy grass.

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With a good handlens you can see the tiny teeth or  bristles on the edge of the blade of Timothy

If you hold a blade of Timothy to the light it has an  interesting pattern 

There is more I could add - but Hey, that is for another day.

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Timothyttt

  Timothy-name

History of Phleum pratense as "Timothy"



Added in Summer 2026;
A neighbour in June in nearby Stainforth asked on Facebook asked "Why is it called "Timothy" grass?
I researched

NOTE (June 2026- Historical fact - AI - ChatGpt and other systems have just become rapidly available - )

(Though it makes it difficult or laborious to credit sources)

 And AI can still often be wrong. (As I know from suggestions AI has made to me about identification of species  of lichens and plants. )

Anyway,

I researched.

and discovered it is not because a man called Timothy Hanson in America bred it, or because he introduced it in the USA .. He simply promoted it in America in about 1720. It is first recorded as being called "Herd's grass" in New England in about 1711.. 

In the 1600s in Europe people encouraged a variety of plants to grow in their meadows. I presume the combination of meadow plants had just arisen naturally derived from wood pasture.  Phleum pratense  was not prized as an agricultural grass then and probably didn't have a name.  

The plants in European manage pastures and meadows did not grow in America.  As Europeans began to colonise America, they brought their animals horses, cattle, sheep etc with them. Seeds from the hay they brought for the cattle would escape and start to grow.

Phleum pratense is first known to have been recorded as "Hard's Grass around 1711 in New England. That tells us it must have been growing there for some years beforehand.  

Timothy Hanson promoted it as an outstanding hay crop around 1720.  It was already established by then.  So it became known as Timothy Grass.

Seed was widely distributed throughout the American colonies. from 1755-1850 Seed was deliberately imported for hay and pasture (e.g. Cock's-foot) - but 

British farmers later imported seed from America, helping to popularise a grass that was already native to Britain but whose agricultural value had been demonstrated across the Atlantic.

Linnaeus on the other side of the Atlantic published the name Phleum pratense in 1753,

Scientists in Europe before Linnaeus had given species extremely long names made up of a description of their features. 

Caspar Bauhin (1560–1624) was a Swiss physician and botanist . He distinguished between  genus and species, he laid essential groundwork for the naming system later refined by Carl Linnaeus.

He called it Phleum pratense majus which literally means: "The larger meadow Phleum."

e.g. John Ray referred to it in his works.

Early herbalists made pictures of something like it, sometimes referring to it as Phleos (from a Greek word for grass), 

European settlement of America

1400–1492: No permanent European population on the North American mainland.

1492–1600: Explorers, fishermen and a few short-lived colonies; only tiny permanent populations.

1607 onward: Permanent English settlement begins at Jamestown, followed by rapid growth.

From 1600-1700 most of the seed introductions were accidental:-

Mixed with hay, straw, grain, and ship ballast.

Included timothy, perennial ryegrass, sweet vernal grass and probably Kentucky bluegrass.

More grasses at:
http://rainforest-save.blogspot.co.uk/p/grasses.html

Coffee Morning 3rd August 10am

Hurray! We have a Coffee Morning organised for the Rainforest Fund - It is this coming Tuesday on Augsut 3rd at 10 am in the church foyer.
All welcome
Come and enjoy the scones and cake.

Buy beautiful Greetings cards.

Buy the new 2011 calendars, ready to post as presents.

Invite your friends.

See you!!!


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