Yorkshire fog
Holcus lanatus
Family · Poaceae · Harmless
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The grass that feels soft, covered in short hairs all over, with a whitish and pink panicle that closes into a cigar and opens again. Touch it once and you will not confuse it again: it feels like velvet.
Fields and pasture · Roadsides and waste ground · Streams and ditches · Uplands · Oak woods
Also known asvelvet grass, tufted grass
How to tell it
Thirty centimetres to a metre, in loose tussocks of pale greyish green. The whole plant, leaves and stems, is covered in short dense hair, and that identifies it with your eyes shut. The stem base has fine purple stripes, like veins in a leg, a sign no similar grass has. The panicle is dense, whitish with pink tones, and closes in damp weather.
What it is confused with
No dangerous lookalikes known in the Iberian Peninsula.
What it is for
A poor forage that livestock eat without enthusiasm. It indicates damp, acid, poor soils, often compacted. No human food use.
Where it occurs
Each square is an area with recorded observations of this plant. The lighter background is the set of areas where any of the entries has been observed, and serves as a reference. Note what this is not: it is not where the plant lives, it is where people record it, so trails and towns always look fuller than the mountains. Data from GBIF.