Grass Workshop at the Courtenay Airpark

A couple of Fridays ago I had the opportunity to join an impromptu grass workshop led by Dr. Brian Wikeem at the Courtenay Airpark. The Comox Valley Naturalists Society has an ongoing restoration/invasive plant removal project at Airpark and Dr. Wikeem had volunteered to help us try to identify some of the 75+ species of grass growing there.

I should state that for the novice (and even the enthusiast), identifying grass can be very challenging and frustrating. At the end of about an hour I was happy that I could now conclusively identify three very distinctive looking grasses.

Here’s a few of the different kinds of grasses that we found:

Dunegrass (Elymus mollis)
Dunegrass (Elymus mollis), replanted at the Courtenay Airpark.
Orchard Grass (Dactylis glomerata)
Orchard Grass (Dactylis glomerata)
Vulpia sp.?
Vulpia sp.? – not really sure if that’s the right genus for this one.
Agrostis sp.
Agrostis sp.
Bulbous Bluegrass (Poa bulbosa)
Bulbous Bluegrass (Poa bulbosa)