How to Identify the Five Most Common British Grasses

Dr Phil Buckley gets intimate with grasses to show us how their structures can be used to identify them, and how latin names can be remembered with just a little creativity.

[@taryn4080]

Summary of grasses:
1:36 - Wall Barley
3:03 - False Oat Grass
4:10 - Cocksfoot
5:00 - rye grass (common)
5:45 - couch grass (common)
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[@lordpotato9453]

I will always like a helpful selfless comment. Thank you

[@nellieharvey]

Love this Dr Philp

[@navstar7334]

Great Phil! Never had the ambition to identify more than the most common grasses - but failed miserably down the years 😉. This simple "starter" video may be the trigger to changing that at last 👍

[@cuznerdexter]

Very informative. Great video, keep it up 👍

[@kimberlymclear6413]

very helpful!! Thank you

[@nellieharvey]

Fantastic

[@guitarnotator]

Do you know if there are any poisonous barley grasses in the uk? I believe wall barley has come out but i'm struggling to differ it from the other barley grasses.

[@iangarlick5739]

Hello
I was taught that annual meadow grass was the most common and numerous plant in the world. Is that correct. ?.Rye grass is common but perhaps because it is cultivated?

[@guitarnotator]

Are any of them edible?

[@ColinMill1]

Many thanks for this. I am ashamed to admit that despite having a small-holding for over 20 years my grass identification skills have hardly progressed beyond Yorkshire fog. I'm struggling to identify one very beautiful grass we have here. 1.4m tall, with narrow, quite markedly ribbed blades of about 150mm long and 4mm wide with a steady taper to a sharp tip. The ligules are about 9mm long. The awnless spikelets are about 4mm long and carried in long clusters on many very fine threads such that the clusters are hanging downwards. The flower head is (when straightened out) about 200mm long. The nodes have purple rings.
It would be great if you could give me a few pointers as to what it is or what else I need to look for. Thanks.
(Edited to add that I think it might be Deschampsia cespitosa - not a beautiful name for such a lovely plant!)

[@summertimescience3972]

Ah! grasses are so difficult to ID. I'm contacting Phil and another lecturer to see if they can help. Do you have a good grass ID guide or taxonomic key? Even with that, it is still difficult. Some apps can ID plants if you have a good speciment with flower (Seek) but they also struggle with grasses.

[@ColinMill1]

@@summertimescience3972 Many thanks for the reply. I do have a copy of C.E. Hubbard's "Grasses" which is very extensive but rather hard going as a field guide I find (not least of which because I now need close-working glasses to read the text!) I find Keble Martin more accessible but the grasses section is not very extensive. I have tried PlantNet and am impressed with its ability on most things but, as you say of Seek, it struggles with grasses. I'm hoping to get time to collect samples of a number of the varieties I'm unsure of while they are in flower and photograph them for future study.

[@ColinMill1]

@@summertimescience3972 Many thanks for the reply. I do have a copy of C.E. Hubbard's "Grasses" which is very extensive but rather hard going as a field guide I find (not least of which because I now need close-working glasses to read the text!) I find Keble Martin more accessible but the grasses section is not very extensive. I have tried PlantNet and am impressed with its ability on most things but, as you say of Seek, it struggles with grasses. I'm hoping to get time to collect samples of a number of the varieties I'm unsure of while they are in flower and photograph them for future study.