Sweet Vernal Grass (Anthoxanthum odoratum), UK wild grass, 3 plants in 7 cm square pots.
Sweet Vernal Grass (Anthoxanthum odoratum) is the species that gives mown grass its smell of hay, and despite being less palatable to livestock than many other grasses, has often been included in grass mixes for its pleasant scent during haymaking and when rubbed between the hands. This is due to the chemical coumarin that it contains which is also found in other pleasant smelling wildflowers including Meadowseet, Woodruff and the introduced White Melilot.
The anticoagulant warfarin, used first as a rat poison and then as a medicine for preventing blood clots, is derived from coumarin via dicoumarol.
The grass also smells and tastes of vanillin, as indicated by the Sweet part of its name. The first part of the scientific name, Anthoxanthum refers to the pigment that produces the yellow colour in its long cylindrical flower heads. It is one of the earliest flowering of the grasses with its female parts being produced earlier than those of the male to favour cross pollination.
Value to Wildlife
Sweet Vernal Grass serves as one of the foodplants for the larvae of a number of Brown and Skipper butterflies and the Scotch Argus.
Our plants
Many people find wild grasses difficult to identify. This is one of a collection of labelled grasses we grow in pots so that you can get to know them well enough to be able put a name to them when you meet them in the field.
These have been grown by ourselves in our nursery in Cupar, Fife, Scotland from seed obtained from native British plants.
Your purchase
You are purchasing three, 7 cm square pots of Sweet Vernal Grass
Our plants are sold purely for their biodiversity, educational and aesthetic value and no part should be consumed or applied externally unless you are absolutely certain of their safety.
Please note that our nursery is located at Cupar, Fife, our St Andrews address being for correspondence only. Plant Passport Registration Number GB-S 03473.
Ladyburn Plant Nursery has been registered, by the Scottish Government, as a Professional Operator who is authorised to issue plant passports. (These are now required for internet sales of all plants including native plants grown and sold within the UK, not just those for those shipped abroad, as previously). Registration Number GB-S 03473.