With at least 18 different types of grass, Heene Cemetery looks unlike most garden lawns and park greens. And whereas flowers obviously provide pollen and nectar, it may not be immediately clear that grasses do this too, although they do. Other than that: grasses are eaten - by adult insects and invertebrates, and by their larval forms. That's why butterflies choose specific grasses (and plants) to lay their eggs on - so that larvae have their preferred food to eat the moment they need it.
This variety of grasses in Heene Cemetery's neutral grassland habitat, therefore, plays a huge role in butterfly and moth conservation, as can be seen from the listing below. It's a variety that will also support crickets and grasshoppers, as well as various seed-eating birds, bees, beetles and spiders.
Remember: the greater the variety of plant and grass species there is, the richer the variety of insects and pollinators there will be that live on them. This is abundantly true about Heene Cemetery.
This low-growing native grass flowers throughout the year. It is an annual or short-lived perennial, and has pale green leaves and a pyramidal panicle.
Annual Meadow Grass is the larval food source of the Gatekeeper butterfly. It is also valuable as a winter food source for finches, such as Chaffinch, Goldfinch and Greenfinch.
Flowering from late April, this long-awned annual or biennial grass has loose, drooping panicles with rough branches longer than their spikelets.
Flowering from May, this native, tussocky grass has flower heads resembling birds' feet, on slim stems. The leaves have sharp edges.
This grass is a valuable as a food source to caterpillars of the Essex Skipper, Gatekeeper, Marbled White, Meadow Brown and Ringlet butterflies and the Cocksfoot Moth. Its seeds are eaten by finches such as Chaffinch, Goldfinch and Greenfinch. Bumblebees build nests in this long grass; and carder bees, such as the Common Carder Bee, often prefer to nest in holes by the stalks of Cock's-foot grass.
This is a creeping perennial with fine, flat leaves, spreading panicles, and greenish or purplish-brown spikelets. It is native, and flowers from June.
Common Bent is a grass that helps stabilize soil and reduce erosion. It provides habitat support is a larval food source for Gatekeeper and Meadow Brown (and elsewhere Small Heath and Wall) butterflies.
This is a tall, short-awned annual or biennial brome, with grey-green leaves, an erect panicle, and loosely clustered flower spikes. As the UK's most common form of brome, it is native, and flowers from May.
This is a native creeping perennial with long runners, spreading panicles, and greenish or purplish spikelets. It flowers from June.
This is a short-lived native perennial, growing in compact tufts, which has a tightly packed rectangular seed head flat on one side. It flowers from June.
Crested Dog's-tail grass is the foodplant of several butterfly species in the Brown and Skipper families.
This tall, loosely tufted, native perennial flowers from May, when its spreading panicle produces shining 2-flowered spikelets.
False Oat-grass is a food source for the larvae of Common Blue and Skipper butterflies. It is also food for various Cereal flies.
This is a shade-loving tufted perennial, with lax leaves, and a nodding raceme with awned and stalked spikelets. It is native, and flowers from July.
False-brome grass can be a food plant for the Essex Skipper, Large Skipper, Ringlet and (elsewhere Wall Brown) butterflies.
Flowering from June, this patch-forming native perennial has stiff yellow-green leaves and erect spikelets. This grass is a valuable to caterpillars of the Marbled White butterfly, and to adult Essex Skippers.
This native grass is quick germinating and tough, with narrow blade-like leaves. It flowers from May.
This loosely tufted native perennial has a pyramidal panicle and quivering, ovoid spikelets. It flowers from May. There are some notable patches of this very special grass in Heene Cemetery.
The seeds of Quaking Grass are an excellent source of food for Yellowhammers, Linnets, Greenfinches and House Sparrows. They are also a larval food source for the Meadow Brown butterfly.
Red Fescue is a native, shade-loving, creeping perennial, with dark green glossy, bristly leaves which are rolled up into tubes. It flowers from May, requiring the neutral soils that are found in Heene Cemetery (and acidic ones that are found elsewhere). This grass is an essential food source to the larvae of the Marbled White butterfly.
This annual or perennial creeping grass has yellow-green or grey-green leaves, and a rough feel to the stem. It is a native and flowers from May.
According to Plantlife, one plant of Rough Meadow Grass can produce up to 29,000 seeds, providing food for worms and ground beetles. It is also the food plant of caterpillars of the Small Heath, Meadow Brown, Gatekeeper butterflies, the Common Sun beetle - and various leafhoppers and grass bugs.
Sheep's Fescue is a short, slow-growing native perennial with grey-green bristly leaves. It flowers from June. This grass is a valuable to caterpillars of the Gatekeeper, Marbled White, Meadow Brown and Small Heath butterflies. It is also valuable to various Pyralid Grass Moths whose larvae feed internally on the lower part of the grass's stems.
Upright Brome is a tufted and erect grass - a perennial. It can grow to a meter in height. The plant, as with many Brome grasses, can be hairy. It is found in ungrazed grassland, where it is often seen in dense stands.
This grass has alternative names, including Erect Brome or Meadow Brome.
Although this is a reasonably common plant, it has not (knowingly) been seen in Heene Cemetery since the Site of Conservation Importance citation in 1992.
Children for generations have used the bristly flower spikes of this native grass as darts. It is an annual, with light green leaves, and it flowers from May.
Flowering from May, this greyish downy perennial native grass is very common in the cemetery. Its panicles have white or pinkish-purple spikelets.
This grass is valuable as a food source to caterpillars of the Marbled White, Speckled Wood, Small Skipper (and elsewhere the Wall Brown) butterflies.
Although some of the above grasses may have no recorded plant-animal relationship, all will have value. In the broadest sense, as well as being eaten, grasses provide shelter for innumerable creatures. They also protect against soil erosion, absorb water, purify the air we breathe and sequester carbon. In terms of ecosystems, the sum is always greater than the parts.
Information sources:
- Butterfly Conservation
- Caring for God's Acre
- Field Studies Council
- Pantlife
- The RSPB
- The Wildlife Trusts
- UK Butterflies
Written by Rob Tomlinson