Its one-sided head carries dense knuckly spikelet clusters on a few stiff branches, the lowest thrown out like a splayed claw
Cock's-foot — the clue is in the name.
Nature · Ferns, grasses & other plants
Cock's-foot
Perennial grass · to 1.4 m · flowers June–September
Dactylis glomerata — Poaceae
Cock's-foot is the big coarse tussock grass of roadside, rough meadow and woodland ride, and the easiest British grass to learn: its flower head is one-sided, with dense knuckly clusters of spikelets held out on a few stiff branches like the splayed toes of a bird's foot. The base of the shoot is flattened into a distinct keel, so a leaf pulled from the tussock feels like a folded ribbon. It is a major agricultural grass, sown worldwide and known in North America as orchard grass.
How to spot them
- ▸Flower head one-sided and lumpy, the spikelets in dense clusters on two or three stiff, spreading branches
- ▸The lowest branch is held right out from the stem like a splayed claw — the cock's foot
- ▸Shoot base strongly flattened and keeled; a pulled leaf is folded, not rolled
- ▸Coarse grey-green tussocks with a rough leaf edge that saws the fingers
- ▸Roadsides, rough grassland, hedge banks and woodland rides, on almost any soil
How to know it
Its generic name is Greek for finger and its specific name Latin for clustered, both describing the flower head
Dactylis glomerata.
Pull a leaf from the tussock and the base is flattened into a keel, so the shoot is folded rather than rolled
Cock's-foot — the single most reliable way to name it out of flower.
In North America this coarse European tussock grass is a major hay and pasture crop called orchard grass
Cock's-foot.
Its tussocks are the larval foodplant of the marbled white, the speckled wood and the Essex skipper
Cock's-foot.
Long-standing tussocks of it shelter overwintering insects and small mammals in field margins
Cock's-foot.
Quick-fire facts
- •Dactylis is from the Greek daktylos, a finger; glomerata is Latin for clustered in a ball
- •Known in North America as orchard grass, and one of the world's most widely sown forage grasses
- •The flattened, keeled shoot base is the standard field character for identifying it when not in flower
- •Larval foodplant of the marbled white, speckled wood, Essex skipper and large skipper butterflies
- •A tussock-former: it does not make a fine turf, and is a weed of lawns and fine swards
- •Flowers June to September; the anthers give the head a pinkish-beige cast when in full flower
- •Its abundance on road verges and in rank grassland reflects tolerance of both drought and heavy cutting
Drill it — 6 cards
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Sources
- The Wildlife Trusts — Cock's-foot