Whorl-grass

A stoloniferous herb of muddy pond margins, cattle-poached ditches, canals and sluggish streams; also, as var.uniflora, on wet open sand by the sea. Almost entirely lowland, but recorded in flushes at 710 m on Little Fell (Westmorland).

This very attractive grass was growing with other water plants such as Baldellia rununculoides (Lesser Water-plantain) and Hippurus vulgaris (Mare's-tail) in a freshwater drainage ditch close to the Green Beach of the Sefton Coast. It was a breezy day and the spikelets scarcely stayed still for a moment but in spite of that the the photo is a reasonable likeness.

It is found on the coast often as var uniflora and inland throughout the British Isles with fewer sites in the far north of Scotland.