These pictures show us picking fruit at the Settle Community Hub Allotment at Cammock Lane Allotments on Thur 2 July. I was back there a week later this morning at 8am picking more raspberries - with the dew on the fruit in the cool before the day gets hot.
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Lecanora campestris often found on sandstone slabs at ground level - found on the kerb and cobbles at Langcliffe Fountain. (Identifying features: The edge of the thallus is white and the very edge is fimbriate (looks frayed). The dark brown discs have a pale "Jam-tart" rim. |
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| Langcliffe War Memorial |
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| Fern-Grass: Catapodium rigidum |
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| Circinarea contorta subsp contorta - grows on limestone and on concrete |
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| Getting Low |
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| Verrucaria nigrescens. This likes a base rich substrate such as limestone. |
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| Protoblastenia rupestis - Langcliffe cobbles. It likes concrete and limestone. |
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| Cladonia pocillum. I call it Limestone Pixie-cup, but I Naturalist calls it Rosette Pxie cup. |
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| 1. Candelariella vitellina - Common Goldspeck Lichen. This does not turn red when alkali (KOH) is applied. |
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| Candelariella vitellina - Common Goldspeck Lichen. Closer view This does not turn red when alkali (KOH) is applied |
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| 2. Common Sunburst Lichen Xanthoria parietina This is very common around Settle and turns red when KOH is applied. |
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| Filamentous alga. Maybe algae will get investigated in 2028.. |
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| Rhizocarpon reductum. This grows on siliceous acid rock, such as sandstone. The back discs often grow in concentric circles |
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| Rhizocarpon reductum. This grows on siliceous acid rock, such as sandstone. The back discs often grow in concentric circles |
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| There is a little bit of Lecanroa campestris (1st picture on this page) and Rhizocarpon reductum on these kerb stones. However, the biggest patches are formed by "Chewing gum lichen" Protoparmeliopsis muralis formerly called Lecanora muralis)s |
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Fern Grass is an uncommon grass in the Northern half of Britain.
I see Fern-Grass so rarely that I remember stories about all the places I have found it in Britain.
(Hint for vegetatively identifying this tiny annual grass of dry places, with leaves less than 2cm long - It has yellowish roots. - or look for dead flowers from last year)
To get it onto my list of Langcliffe Grasses in 2026 - and this gets it up to number 29 - there is only (now) one place I would have to go - the cobbles beside the Fountain in Langcliffe!!.
And there on 2nd July 2026 it still was. Its neat, regular inflorescences sticking up all of 1 or 2 inches (8cm) above ground level.
So low it required my hand lens and kneeling/lying mat.
This annual grass would have been flowering in late May. By now most of the flower heads have turned magenta-red-brown-fawn -
(That is those that had not finished and died altogether.)
I chatted to the owner of the house on the right. Tomorrow (Sat and Sun 4 & 5 July) is Langcliffe Open Gardens. His garden is open. He was just painting the white window frames on his house. He had just mown the grass on the cobbles he said ruefully when I explained I was looking at grasses. "That is fine for the fern grass I said, It doesn't like the more vigorously growing grasses.
This annual grass would have been flowering in late May. By now most of the flower heads had turned magenta-red-brown - (that is those that had not finished and died altogether..)
But a few had new green flower heads regrowing.
If you go to the cobbles there is a mown grassy, deep soil area near the birch tree where the grass is thick and there is no fern grass.
Look in the areas where there is bare soil between the cobbles - this year covered by mosses since we had a some periods of rain over winter and spring. There is lots of Annual Meadow-grass which has a more irregular flowerhead, light green leaves over 4mm wide that are folded lengthways, and which flowers all year (you will probably know it from your own garden)
Other grasses growing on the cobbled area (As well as the Fern grass and the Annual Meadow-grass) include: Cock's-foot, Rye-grass, Yorkshire Fog, Smooth Meadow-grass, Common Bent, Creeping Bent, Red Fescue,(plus near the birch tree- a big one I am thinking about - ) That's a total of ten yesterday.
I have a list of 16 herbs - (flowering plants that are not grasses).
You'll see me down there again shortly looking for another 4 to bring my total of plants on the cobbles up to thirty!!
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That's not to count the 11 species of lichens I can recognise, which I will do a post for later, the five species of moss I can differentiate and the alga in the fountain.
And just one note on the fountain - I wonder if it is fed by water sinking in the ground next to the carpark, where I found the Plicate Sweet Grass last week - where the highways department were placing a drain . ?? Or is it fed from our water supply. Or was it built when they built the institute?. Can anyone from Langcliffe tell me?
DO come to Langcliffe Open Gardens 4-5 July
Wildflower walks round Settle from Covid onwards..
Grasses - index to posts about different species of grass on this site
I hope you have enjoyed looking into the fascinating world of the cobbles round the fountain at Langcliffe.
