The video of Peter Gateley's talk on 9 November 2024 on Introduction to Grasses is on You Tube at https://youtu.be/mgGHS6SX8PI

​Questions for Peter included what exactly was sea-washed turf, as some people had not heard of it. Grazed saltmarshes are often dominated by Red Fescue, and it was in demand as fine-leaved turf, at one time it was really big business in places like Morecambe Bay.

Mary Dean gave an alternative way of describing the differences in positioning of the rachis on Common Couch and Perennial Rye Grass is that a fairy (or cat) can lie on a Couch but falls off in rye grass!

Ways of remembering the positions of the glume, lemma and palea were discussed (including alphabetical from bottom to top). 

Other alternatives guides for identification were also discussed - for beginners there is Dominic Price’s “A Field Guide to Grasses, Sedges and Rushes” and Faith Anstey “Start to Identify Grasses”. Some of the standard field guides also have a section on grasses. For grasses not in flower there is Hilary Wallace’s FSC” Grasses: a guide to identification using vegetative characters.”

The BSBI YouTube Channel has videos on grass identification. The FSC has an online key to grasses. Ken’s Keys (Ken Adams) has keys to the grass genera. The BSBI website has Plant Crib with useful accounts of several genera. More details on useful links are in our Links Section www.livbotsoc.org/links.html and in the pdf file below.

Everyone thanked Peter for the talk and the photos showing the appropriate part needed for identification, they also urged him to do a follow up talk on other grass species in other habitats.