Sand and grass

This old whisky bottle filled with layers of sand –they were level but got a bit squidged when a plumber took it under the bathroom – used to be the base of a lamp. It hasn't been the base of a lamp for a number of years now and has just been kicking around gathering dust. I needed some sand to help me identify a grass yesterday, so I poured a bit of the sand into an egg cup...

grass and sand

...so that I could take this close-up photo in my attempt to identify the grass.

I think this tufty grass is what Francis Rose and
C E Hubbard call Fine-leaved Sheep's Fescue (Festuca tenuifolia) and what Keble Martin calls Awnless Sheep's Fescue. My final confirmation, at least until someone more gramineously knowledgeable than I am corrects it, came when I saw how similar were my photo and the illustration in Hubbard's book. The book's drawings are acknowledged as being mostly by Joan Sampson.

My photo, taken under midge attack.

Joan Sampson's drawing

This species is #boggybrae #wildplant 125 for 2015.