Catapodium rigidum - Fern Grass - Langcliffe cobbles - a rarety in Craven.

 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.

See maps taken from the botanical Society of the British Isles website

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.