Downy Chess grass

In trying to put together a phenology—a record of the timing of nature's events—I'm always on the lookout for certain species of plants and animals whose appearance can tell me something about the progress of the season and whether things are on track or not. Such records, if they're accurate and long-term, can be gold mines for researchers, especially climate-change scientists who are looking for evidence of how the natural world is responding to global warming. The journals of Henry David Thoreau proved a treasure trove: the 19th-century Concord naturalist had years of phenological data about such things as when trees leafed out and when wildflowers bloomed, and the information was so accurate and thorough that it could be compared with current Massachusetts data gleaned for the same species in the same area. The message? Plants are breaking dormancy and blooming as much as a week earlier than they did in Thoreau's time. Climate change, in other words, is real and has a real impact. Would that I had similar accurate data, but I'm not that compulsive. Still, I'd like to believe that researchers might find a bit of useful information in my photo records, which capture when I first discover certain species. This one is Downy Chess, a kind of annual grass, that just came above ground and is now gracing the roadsides.