By: Blonde Two
Whilst we were out looking for bluebells last week, the Two Blondes invented a new plant. Well, we like to think that we invented it but it is more likely that we saw it for the first time. We christened our cotton-woolly new finding “bog cotton” and were very smug about our inventiveness and flair for words until internet research showed that it is in fact called … wait for it … you won’t believe this … Bog Cotton! Well, it seems to have lots of names, cotton-grass being one and the very posh “eriophorum angustifolium” being another. I rather like latin plant names and am going to try to remember that one so that I can show off when I am faced with a bunch of tor namers or hill top racers.
We first noticed it as we were driving (roof down – how girlie and Blondie) up towards Hemsworthy Gate. Patches of the grass looked as though they had turned white in a “just started snowing” kind of way. On closer inspection, Bog Cotton lives up to its (real or invented) name, it looks like cotton wool on the end of bits of grass and appears to always be in a bog. This fact proved to be a very useful navigation aid as we were pottering around looking for a route between Emsworthy (bluebells) and Holwell (more bluebells). Blonde One likes to “always trust her compass” – I am going to “always trust the bog cotton” from now on. It was easy navigation, bog cotton – wet feet, no bog cotton – dry feet. This will, hopefully, explain the less than perfect photo – I couldn’t get any nearer without a bog dunking.
We had to take a fair few uphill diversions to avoid the bog cotton and its soggy roots. It was during one of these that I found another fantastic navigation aid – this is an old fashioned but portable aid and is commonly known as the navisheep. Navisheep can be seen all over Dartmoor, they have cute babies but make rubbish points to aim for on the horizon because they don’t stay still. They do, however, know their way through bogs – if you can’t decide quite which way will be the driest, find a flock of navisheep and follow them wherever they are going. I can guarantee that your feet will be drier than they would otherwise have been.
So if you ever forget your trusty compass or lose your faithful friend – don’t dispare – you can rely on good old bog cotton and the navisheep to get you out of deep water!
When my girlies were a bit ickler than they are now I used to pick the bog cotton (naughty, naughty I know) and give one to then as a comforter when they were upset that their feet were wet after I took them stomping through it!!!! Fortunately it doesn’t seem to upset them so much now!
Very naughty! Common Cottongrass is common in the north and west of Britain but much less common and declining in the south.
There are 3 other cottongrasses, all looking rather similar, so check out the leaves – angustifolium has keeled leaves with a long, triangular tip, nodding inflorescences with 3 to 7 spikes.
Broad-leaved C has wide, flat leaves, up to about 8mm wide, yellowish-green, with a short, solid tip. Inflorescence has up to 12 spikes, nodding. It is much rarer.
Slender C has very narrow leaves, less than 2mm wide and a narrow, solitary stem sharply three-angled. Inflorescence has 3 to 6 spikes – nodding when it is fruiting. It is very rare but is recorded from south England and west Wales. Anywhere where this one grows is VERY WET INDEED. I’ve never found it yet.
Hare’s-tail C forms tussocks and has bluntly triangular stems, with very narrow leaves indeed – like bristles, and only a solitary, erect not nodding, inflorescence.
Sorry – I like Cottongrasses – though properly, they are not grasses at all, but sedges.
I am going to have to go back with boots and gaiters to have a closer look now. I had no ideas there were so many!
I laughed out loud, spraying tea everywhere whilst I did so, when I first read this blog post.
My husband and I had almost the exact same conversation and came up with the *EXACT* same ‘made-up’ name for this plant when we first encountered it shortly after moving to Ireland.
Neither of us had seen it before in the UK, and we came across it in the middle of a turf (peat) bog in Co. Galway one day. I remarked that it looked just like “those American cotton plants” and hubby said “but growing in a bog”…”let’s call it Bog Cotton”
Much like yourselves, I was a little dismayed to later discover that we hadn’t come up with a clever new name for it haha!
It is abundant in the area where we live, and I love seeing it.
Great minds obviously think alike – at least we all agreed with the name that had been given!