Helictotrichon pratense Meadow Oat-grass

Grass of the Month for June 2011   

Tall, stiff and upright,  shining in t' sun

Botanist spots it - Oh what fun

On chalk or limestone, to it we'll run

Four awns on t' spikelet, not two or one.

(Can be sung to "Rock a bye Baby", or "I had a little nut tree")

The spikelets are over 1 cm long.

It was formerly called Avenula pratense.

How do you distinguish them from other "Oat-grasses"?

Easy. 

Meadow Oat-grass has 4 flowers (and 4 awns) per spikelet (well, between 3 and 6),

Downy Oat-grass has 2 or 3 awns per spikelet.

False Oat-grass has 1 long awn per spikelet.

When not in flower it is equally easy - the upper surface of the blades are very white and have "Better tramlines than the Poas" - i.e. they have two dark grooves running down at the centre of the blade... I must find some picture to put up.. but it's raining rather to hard outside now to go and get a picture.

.

.It is an indicator of old grassland and disappears if a field is given lots of fertilizer.

(For links to other grasses through 2010 and 2011 see Grasses Page)

Saltaire Ladies, Ladies bedstraw, Clover, Cake and Coincidences

How is fundraising for the Rainforest Fund going? -

Slowly, but we had a boost today.

And things tie up.. remember me talking about Clover in yesterday's blog? Well you'll see.



Last month, an organiser from  a Methodist Shipley and Saltaire Ladies group had phoned me to see if we (St John's) did teas.

Lesley who sometimes organises church teas nobly offered to organise the salad, and we split the profit between the Church  and the Rainforest Fund. Win and Maurice helped.

And my job?

"You could get some flowers to put on the table" suggested Lesley.


So early that afternoon off I trotted   (sorry, staggered) , up the near vertical hill to Lower Winskill, where I met Tom Lord thistle stubbing.   "May I pick a few of your  Yellow Rattle please?". I admired his Red Clover. He said it grew best where the Yellow Rattle had got established.

Tom told me he had received such a nice letter from a partially sighted group who had visited his meadows, with their wheelchair accessible new path,  for about four hours the previous week. "People need to stay a long time to get enough out of the meadows" he said.

I collected more wildflowers and returned, and placed them in three small vases on the dining table.

The Saltaire Group arrived and were treated to a splendid salad (ham/cheese or tuna)  and trifle and cake.

We all admired the flowers including the Red Clover. I said I had got if from Lower Winskill.

Then their minibus driver said "I know Tom Lord, I took a group of partially sighted people up their last week!"

Small world.

After costs, we made £28.87 for the Rainforest Fund and £28.87 for the Church Fund; and the ladies bought £16.50 worth of Greetings cards.

Thanks to all.

Bishop Nick ascends Pen y Ghent

How should a new Bishop get to know his Diocese?

On foot of course.

Bishop Nick, new bishop of Bradford Diocese took advantage of today  21 June,the longest day of the year to visit many places and started by setting off for the summit of Pen y Ghent at 5am from Horton school.

The forecast (and arrival) of rain did not deter the groups of 17 people who donned waterproofs and set of .. upwards. The walk would be 5.5 miles long and involve climbing from 232 m at Horton to 694 m (2,277ft)  at the summit.

John Bavington and Bishop Nick

The final steps of the millstone grit ridge on the
 south face of Pen y Ghent

Do we make it to the summit?
Yes we do --

To find a small group has gone ahead and made coffee and flapjacks for us.

Bishop Nick records us on his tape recorder  at the top clapping for the coffee

On the way down he spies some sheets of white flowers on the cliff.

"What are they?"

Later we find some by the wallside. It is Mossy Saxifrage! (see the picture at the top of this posting).

Later we find the grass Yorkshire Fog and the important plant Red Clover

We arrive at the main road by 8am ready for Bishop Nick to go to Feizor for breakfast at the excellent cafe there and to do (wet) dry stone walling with the farmers... and many more activities during the day till evening-time in Bradford

Sward - a Drama about Haymeadows

A play by the theatre company Blaise has been performed in 

many local venues in the Yorkshire Dales. there are four actors. Jason a young farmer out spraying thistles meets Jemima a boatny student collecting haymeadow seeds .. and the magically get transported through time from pre-bronze age when everywhere was forested up to the future ..

I went to see it at Hawes two weeks ago. Then on Thursday it would be at Settle. I  made a collection of Haymeadow plants so that people could see what the plants are like that the actors talk about - Yellow rattle, Bush vetch, Meadow sweet 

"And don't forget the grasses - they're often overlooked" was a key phrase in the play - So I brought in Quaking-grass and Cock's-foot and Yorkshire Fog and Ryegrass.

Here are the hero and heroine looking at the plants

Here they are on the stage

The play was held at the Victoria Hall in Settle. they filmed this performance - so people should be able to obtain copies of the DVD and watch it later.

I made some voting slips  and asked people to choose their favourite haymeadow plant.

Wood cranes-bill (above) scored 6 votes followed closely by Quaking-grass with 5 votes.

I took it to the foyer at our church next ready for Sunday service on 19th.. continued in next blog post.

Winskill Open Studio - NYOS

11-12 June and 18-19 June is North Yorkshire Open Studios - Here is what I found at Lower Winskill Farm above Langcliffe on Saturday 11th June. There are stone carvings by  Sarah Smith both inside and outside the buildings. See http://nyos.org.uk/Artist.aspx?id=252 and http://www.sarahsmith.org.uk/
Here is a face contemplating the flowers and view with Ingleborough in the background.

Below a potter is at work.

His coil pots are in the foreground

He has a machine to help him make the coils

Being photographed at work by Stephen

In the buttercup field (now rather red clover and yellow rattle field) is a sculpture looking like a buttercup "seed"

On one side it is polished.

It is made of Persian travertine - and close examination
shows layers of crystals similar to that in the tufa at Goredale.

A demonstration of traditional lime services -
here using different materials for plastering

Photographing the inside of the visitor centre

Meadow buttercup left in doorway

The approach road from the visitor centre

On the approach road

The footpath down to Langcliffe

Margaret Uttley has done a brilliant picture of this view ... but you will have to come to the exhibition to see it.

Helictotrichon pubescens - Downy Oat-grass

Grass of the Month for May 2011                


Downy Oat-grass is one of my favourite grasses

• It flowers early in the year, in early May - two weeks before its relative, Meadow Oat-grass
• It has big shiny spikelets
• It is easy to identify vegetatively because it is one of only two "ordinary" medium/large grasses which have newest leaf folded and have hairy leaves.
• The other grass is Bromopsis erecta - but Bromopsis has long tapering points to the blades, whereas Helictotrichon has parallel sided blades with blunt, hooded (boat shaped) tips
• Its leaves feel soft and downy
• The base of the blade is as wider or wider than the middle of the blade
• It grows on base rich soils so can be found with other interesting plants
• the vegetative shoots can have red stripes on their shoots a little like Holcus - but Helictotrichon has folded leaves.

The other "ordinary grass" with folded leaves is Upright brome - Bromopsis erecta. Helictotrichon has very blunt  leaf tips - shown here - whereas Bromopsis has very gently tapering leaves.

Helictotrichon vegetative leaves have short ligule (shown at top) -but the culm leaves have longer ligules as you go up the stem.

Helictotrichon pubescens has two or three florets per spikelet, hence two or three awns per spikelet.
Helictotrochon pratense has three to six florets per spikelet.  This is very helpful except when you find a plant with three florets per spikelet.

(for links to other grasses through 2010 and 2011 see Grasses Page)

Hordelymus europaeus - Wood Barley

Grass of the Month for April

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This is a rare woodland grass. ( BSBI Map )

Hordelymus euroapeaus has vegetative features very similar to Bromopsis ramosa (Hairy Brome) i.e.

1. Tufted
2. Grows in basic woods
3. Hairy - long hairs
4. Dark green
5. Blades widest in the middle (as for nearly all woodland grasses)
6. Big auricles

(These are distinguishable from the other big inland grasses with auricles:-  Couch grass - which has rhizomes,  and Wall Barley which has very big clasping auricles and the blades are very floppy, and it is an annual)

In the pictures below where there are two grasses, the Hordelymus is on the left of the picture and the Bromopsis on the right.

Vegetave differences include:

1. Hordelymus has a ligule < 1mm long, Bomopsis usually > 2mm
2. Hordelymus auricles are more horizontal and clasping, brompsis point more downwards at 45 degrees
3. The collar edges "pull back2 and stick out more in Hordelymus, perhaps resulting in the more horizontal auricles
4. The hairs on the Bromopsis blade edge and sheath are very regular and parallel to each other, they are more untidy on the Horelymus
   
5. Bromopsis has deep red colour in the basal sheaths, whereas Hordelymus is pale brown.

Hordelymus on left of picture, Bromopsis on right

The short ligule and auricles on Hordelymus europaeus

£1 a day for food

So how is my living off £1-00 a day for food going?
http://www.livebelowtheline.org.uk/
Here is the food I bought for five days:-

2   500g bag lentils at £1-00 each
1  750g packet quick oat porridge at 95p
1   2.5 kilo packet potatoes at £1-00
portion of butter                         £0.30
2 tblspoons brown sugar             0.10
portion of salt                             0.10
1/20th bottle Cool Earth coffee    0.15
portion of nutmeg                        0.10
portion of barbecue flavouring       .10
1/2 a fudge bar given to me            .15
2 cups of tea given to me  friends   .10
1 slice white bread given                .10
Total: -                                        £5-15 - (but I will have some oats left over and maybe some potatoes)

Good Points:


I find I am saving time by not nipping down to the Coop garage or Booths in the evening to see if there are any bargains for sale.

There is much less washing up than usual.

I abandoned using the nutmeg flavouring for the porridge after the first day - I didn't like it.

The butter and the salt even though in small quantities make the microwaved potatoes delicious.

The barbecue flavouring was good but finished quickly.

I still haven't been out to collect leaves of ground elder to boil.. I really ought to....

I quite enjoy the "homeopathic" coffee - about 8 grains of coffee per mug of hot water.

Bad points:-

I did not wash the lentils as was written on the package the first two days. and although I scrub the potatoes I wonder if there are chemicals left on them - they are not organic. - If I had this diet for four weeks on the go I would wonder if I was getting pesticide chemicals from the food and would be be missing my "Five veg" a day, and wonder about my calcium intake.

Spring Plants

I went for a walk/jog beside the River Ribble down to the Locks and up to Stainforth Foss. there is some hawthorn coming out below my house, but above it it is still on bud or just about to burst through. In the field over the river the cows have hammered the Ladies Smock but left the vegetation on the steep riverbank and also next to the wood where the white wild garlic is spilling though and growing well in the grass of the field. There is Greater Stitchwort on the bank in the field to the south.

At Stainforth Foss and just south of it there are lots of bluebells in the grass - Maybe the drought is holding up the grass, and the bluebells show better.  The water level in the river is ever so low. There are minnows in the river. Children from the caravan club are pond dipping.  Town Hall clock grows on the roadside going up from the packhorse bridge.

As I return through the field above the main road towards the Hoffman Kiln I note that the Ash trees are still almost as bare as in winter - the leaves are just beginning to show on some trees - whilst the sycamore is fully out.  the black plastic bags of silage which were dumped there about twenty years ago are still there.

There is a laburnum tree in full yellow flower near the exit to the kiln area.

The Royal Wedding - William and Catherine

Every Newspaper has featured the royal wedding - so here is this blog editor's contribution.

 Settle got bedecked ready to have a street party on the Friday- but I would be en route to Box Hill on the wedding day, ready for my Grasses course. Here are two pictures of Settle on the day before.





I caught the 7.30 train from Settle, noting that the Hawthorn was not out in Settle, was coming out in Skipton and going south of Leeds was fully out.

On the tube from Kings Cross to Victoria  they announced at the station before Green Park that "Green Park" was closed because it was full so anyone wishing to see the wedding should get out now and go to Embankment. .. my geography and knowledge of London is not good, so I stayed on to Victoria. Here I surfaced and made my way past cordons and police towards Buckingham Palace - well, the back of Buckingham Palace, along with hundreds of others to mill around, knowing there was no way we could get to the front where the royal pair would be going after their service.

A Spanish lady interviewer was being filmed interviewing any group she could find who would speak Spanish so I photographed people photographing the cameraman filming her.  People were wearing Catherine and William masks. A young man in shorts with an eastern European accent was selling cake stands that would fold up and go in a box.

Suddenly two horses and a carriage came out of the back gates of the palace with smartly dressed riders, followed by more empty carriages and beautiful horses.

So we were rewarded! we had seen something. 

Settle sparkles with blue and red bunting for the wedding.

Today is very sunny. Settle market place is looking great with the blue red and white union jack bunting out.

More Early Flowering Grasses and Flowers

Tomorrow I am travelling by train down to Juniper Hall near Box Hill to teach a Grasses Identification Weekend.

So today I went to near the Layby on Bucker (Buck Haw?) Brow to collect some plants to show them - Blue Moor-grass, (in flower of course).

But I was amazed to find Meadow Oat-grass in flower - I had gone to collect vegetative shoots of that because they are "More Poa-like" than the Poas.  I found Smooth Meadow-grass in flower and Sheep's Fescue. At the bypass junction the Compressed Meadow-grass was not out, nor the Squirrel-tail Barley nor the  Reflexed Saltmarsh grass..

The ground is Oh, so dry.

More First Flowering Times April 27th

I saw a couple of hawthorn trees on Skipton Bypass out -- then nothing much till Ripon bypass where there were a lot of hawthorn trees in blume. There were wonderful sheets of Red Campions on Skipton bypass. the lilac and Sweet cicily were both fully out at Grassington. At Yarnbury there were lots of yellow mountain pansies and the spring sandwort.

At the summit of the Airton Settle road the wavy hairgrass was almost out but no yet. Two days ago at Malham the hare's-tail cotton-grass was in flower but not with big white cottony heads yet.

Early Flowering Times This Spring

Around here the day that the trees start to show green (so I tell people) is 17th April and the day that they are fully green is 17th May (or 17th-26th May)

Here, for the records, are notes on what I have seen in flowers and in leaf. Many plants are three weeks ahead of what we had last year.

This year by the 17th April the trees were definitely just starting to go green - maybe I should have looked harder on the 15th April. I will put in some photos that I took then, later. 

But by 24th April the sycamore trees were almost fully out (though still light green). A view towards sycamore trees looked almost like mid summer. But a view towards ash and oak still looked like winter!

Today at the Ash and Oak tree next to Miss Hilary's cottage (Sandhills) the oak tree was definitely coming into leaf whilst the ash was still only flowering. (So we are going to get dry weather)

By 24th April the lilac was just coming out, and horse-chestnut were in full bloom as are apple trees and bird cherry. Usually they don't come out till May

The beech and birch are half way out.

On Sun 24th I went to look at the Spring Cinquefoil which is fully out and doing well on the limestone grassland - though the grassland looks very dry. The Tormentil is not yet out.  I have pictures from mid May last year of us looking at the Spring Cinquefoil. There was lots of cowslips out but I did not notice Early purple orchids

The Purple Saxifrage was out in mid-March this year on Pen y Ghent (I am told). By 9th April it was certainly over, as I noticed on the BBS moss trip.

The Yellow Mountain-pansies are out, and Violets (Viola riviniana), in a field above Stainforth.

I noticed some Cuckoo flower out in the Middle school Playing field on our Lichens Day.. very early. there has been a lot since then in the field opposite me - two weeks ago - presumably no grazing.

Early Scurvy grass (Cochlearia danica) has been out for over a month but there is lots of it now. It is spreading along the road on the road path opposite the ex-Youth Hostel (where is has been for several years) to the path at almost to Stainforth Car Park (where I have not seen it before.)

Today 26 April I have seen Mountain Aven in flower, (and one Tormentil flower), lots of Bird's-eye Primrose, Primroses and Cowslips and Pyrenean Scurvey grass. 

At Malham Tarn Lawn there were lots of Early Purple Orchids. the Marsh Valerian and Bog bean were in bud but not quite out. the Globe flowers were just coming out (I usually tell people mid-May for these). 

The road verges have Sweet Cicely coming out. There are also a few plants of Cow Parsley which are just coming out but not as obvious as the former. The Sloe is going over. Apple blossom and Cherry and Bird cherry is out. Red Campion is out. 

Fibrous Tussock-sedge is in flower as is Spring Sedge, and several other sedges the flowers are emerging. The Brown sedge was not in flower.

On the Fen there was Cuckoo -flower but no Greater Bittercress yet. It was easy to see the fen mosses as the sedges and other fen plants are not too dense. We heard Willow Warbler and saw Swallows.  But not Sedge warbler or Reed bunding - but we did not go everywhere on the fen.  On the tarn we saw two Greylag geese and a Canada- goose. We watched pondskaters on the pools pounce after insects that landed. The Cranberry was in bud. The Marsh Violet was in full flower on tussocks in the fen. Goldilocks was just coming out.

There were lots of Water Crowfoot leaves but no flowers in the side stream that flows into the inflow stream.

In the afternoon I drove to Airedale and noticed one hawthorn tree in flower and one in bud. That's all.  In general Hawthorn is not in flower.

The weather has gone cold today so maybe it will hold things up, and let us stay in this delicious "Just coming out stage" for a while longer.

I have seen Meadow Foxtail flowers for about two weeks - but not noticed any other grasses yet (apart from Blue Moor-grass of course.

I stopped at the garden centre with my neighbour but she said "I never buy plants till the end of May - there is lots of time for frost yet!" So we just enjoyed looking. We had a rain shower for half an hour - that is not enough to replenish the water in the ground!

The Daffodils by the roadside are mostly dead, thought there are still a few white Narcissus type ones left.

Dandelions have been lining the road verges for about two weeks now. 

Wood Anemones have been out for three weeks. I noticed a few Bluebells at Bolton Abbey Woods on 12 April - I do not expect to see them till May.  The Lily of the Valley in my garden box is just coming out.

Well that's enough notes for now.

£1 a day for food for 5 days - Live Below the Line Challenge

Could you live off just £1 a day for five days? 

Join the livebelowtheline challenge - 2-6 May (Find out more)

Become aware of how much we consume unnecessarily - and how difficult it is for poor people to survive on £1-00

I  am going to join the challenge.

I shall donate the money I save from not spending more on food to the Rainforest Fund. 

And I shall get sponsored for Methodist Relief and Development Fund which does support some ecologically orientated projects. Would you like to sponsor me?- Just click here  

Would you like to take part?  There are a variety of partner charities you can support - Christian Aid, Salvation Army, 

Just think, nearly a quarter of the people in the world have to survive off less than £1-00 a day - and that's for everything, not just food.


I first read about this project when I heard that Alison Tomlin,  President of Methodist conference is taking part. Read more

Settle Passion Play - Journey to the Cross - on Good Friday

 Pictures from the Passion Play "Journey to the cross" at Settle this Good Friday morning.

Singing the final hymn