Aira Flexuosa (wavy hair grass to you and me).

Tomorrow the lovely people from the wallpaper factory are coming to my studio to talk about my next design. They come and have a look at how best they can print it before going away and etching the gravure cylinders.

I'm not going to show you the finished design quite yet but it features my favourite grass - so beautiful and delicate. 

I drew a lot of it back in the summer (oh summer, come back soon). 

 My Observer's book of 'Grasses, Sedges and Rushes' came in handy today as I wanted to make sure that I had identified it correctly.

 Aira Flexuosa. Wavy Hair Grass

'This grass is a perennial and generally distributed throughout Britain. It grows abundantly amongst the heather on the uplands. It is particularly luxuriant in some districts of the north where it often covers great areas of moorland...

...in July the delicate stems support a pale greenish-brown, glossy, erect panicle, with wavy hair-like branches, which are no thicker than the most delicate sewing thread..'

I always notice it on the path where the wood meets the fields and there is loads of it in the meadows above Nutclough.

I can't wait to get my next design to print!