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This autumn, help us find Britain’s most colourful and important fungi – waxcaps.
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Poa trivialis
At first glance, this looks like a typical grass. Quite tall, with its flat flowers hanging from the ends of short stalks, arranged along the stem like a Christmas tree. But rub your fingers along the fresh stem and you’ll notice it is slightly rough. Pull the leaf away from the stem a little bit and you’ll see a membrane-like triangle – known as a ligule, this is distinctly long and pointy on Rough Meadow Grass.
Rough Meadow Grass not only grows in all kinds of grassland, but also in marshes, ditches, wastelands and woodland glades. It’s also found on lawns but struggles to survive if mown regularly.
Don’t mistake it with
Smooth Meadow Grass looks very similar but lacks the roughness of the stem, and its ligule, that membrane at the junction of the stem and leaf, is not pointy in shape.
Just one plant of Rough Meadow Grass can produce up to 29,000 seeds, providing food for worms and ground beetles.
Lolium perenne
Its glossy dark green leaves shimmer as they waft in a breeze. Closer up, their spikey flowers cling close to the stem, barely overlapping. The stem turns a lovely burgundy red colour near the base of the stem.
For those with a keen eye, the leaves clasp around the stem with what look like a pair of hooked claws, known as an auricle.
Widespread across the UK, it’s particularly abundant in parklands, sports fields and freshly laid lawns. It is also the most commercially sown grass on farmland, cut a few times a year to provide winter food for cattle and sheep.
Couch Grass has spikey flowers that also cling close to the stem, but unlike Rye Grass, these overlap. Its leaves are grey-green and rather rough rather than the smooth feeling, dark and glossy leaves of Rye Grass.
As Rye Grass grows fast and is eagerly eaten by livestock, it was the first grass in Britain to be sown commercially on farmland, probably more than 400 years ago. Modern varieties are bred to be able to tolerate trampling, mowing and heavy grazing.
Holcus lanatus
This is easy! It has a soft, tall, hairy stems – just run your fingers along it. No other grass feels like this. The bottom of its stem looks like pink stripey pyjamas – no other grass looks like this. There are pink flushes too in its long flower head which look beautiful when swaying in the wind.
The most widespread of all grasses in the UK, it’s found on all kinds of grasslands, from meadows to wastelands. On lawns, it flowers a little bit later than other grasses during No Mow May.
Creeping soft-grass – its nearest relative is only hairy on its nodes, the lumpy bits along the stem that look like knees.
It can be a dominating grass as it produces huge amounts of seed which can germinate almost immediately, and buried seed remains viable for many years.
Dactylis glomerata
It’s one of the bigger lawn grasses which can grow over 1m. Its most distinguishing feature is its flattened lower stems which you can feel with your fingers as easily as you can see. Forming dense tussocks, it also has distinctive heavy-looking flower heads.
It’s found across the UK in all kinds of places but it’s most commonly found in meadows and roadsides. On lawns, it often grows on the lesser mown edges.
False oat grass – another tall, bulky grass which flowers slightly later.
Cock’s-foot grass is a surprisingly good plant for wildlife.
Glechoma hederacea
Ground Ivy is an aromatic creeping herb with funnel-shaped violet flowers.
This small, common evergreen perennial belongs to the mint family and spreads rapidly in a carpet-like form due to its creeping stems. Despite its name, it is not closely related to common ivy.
Ground Ivy has upright flowering stems bearing between two and four violet two-lipped flowers in a whorl. The lower lip has purple spots. Its leaves are scalloped in shape, which may explain why catsfoot is one of its many nicknames.
It is commonly found in woodlands, meadows, hedgerows, and wasteland throughout the British Isles, although it is rarer in Scotland. It also thrives in lawns as it survives mowing.
Hygrocybe conica
Blackening Waxcaps (Hygrocybe conica) sometimes appears in lines along roadside verges, particularly on hillsides or where the grass is well shaded, moist and mossy.
Witches Hat
Blackening Waxcaps can appear remarkably quickly after rain in late summer and autumn, but once mature they remain standing sometimes for more than two weeks.
They are one of the most common waxcaps in Northern Europe.
Cuphophyllus virgineus
Snowy Waxcaps (Cuphophyllus virgineus) can be found in parkland, garden lawns, churchyards and pastures around autumn time.
One of the most widely recorded waxcaps in unfertilised grassland. A variable species which includes varieties having pale buff-brown colours on the cap. Snowy waxcaps are a little more hardy than other waxcap species.
The Cedarwood Waxcap (similar white colour with distinctive smell of woof chippings).
This autumn, help Plantlife find Britain’s most colourful and important fungi – waxcaps.
Hygrocybe coccinea
With a preference for unfertilised land, the Scarlet Waxcap (Hygrocybe coccinea) can be found on cropped grassland and woodland clearings. They often appear in large troops (a group).
Hygrocybe means ‘watery head’, these waxcaps are always very moist. Coccinea means bright red (as in the food colouring cochineal) . The image above shows the justification of the name.
The Crimson Waxcap
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