Grass

Natural vegetaton dominated by grasses

Grass is a common word that generally describes a monocotyledonous green plant in the family Poaceae. True grasses include most plants grown as cereals, for pasture, and for lawns. They include some more specialised crops such as lemongrass, as well as many ornamental plants, and some weeds. They also include plants often not considered to be grasses, such as bamboos.

Grasses and grass-like plants have always been important to human beings. They provide the majority of food crops, and have numerous other uses, such as feeding animals, and for lawns. There are numerous minor uses, and grasses are familiar to most human cultures.

The term 'grass' is sometimes used to describe related plants in the rush (Juncaceae) and sedge (Cyperaceae) families, that resemble grass somewhat. It may also be used to describe other unrelated plants, sometimes of similar appearances to grass, with leaves rising vertically from the ground, and sometimes of dissimilar appearance.

Grass covered house in Iceland

Plants that are commonly called grass, but are not true grasses include:

• Cannabis (more commonly known as marijuana)
• China grass, more commonly known as Ramie (Boehmeria nivea), a nettle grown for bast fibres, in the family Urticaceae
• Ditch grass or Wigeon grass (Ruppia maritima) in the family Ruppiaceae
• Fish grass (Cabomba caroliniana), a freshwater aquatic
• Goosegrass (Galium aparine)
• Mondo grass or Lily turf (Ophiopogon japonicus), an Asian ornamental ground cover
• Nut-grass or Nutgrass, a common lawn pest (Cyperus rotundus) in the family Cyperaceae
• Pepper grass (Lipidium spp.) in the family Brassicaceae
• Sawgrass, abundant in sub-tropical marshlands (Cladium spp.) in the family Cyperaceae
• Scurvy-grass (Cochlearia species) in the family Brassicaceae
• Scurvy-grass Sorrel (Oxalis enneaphylla) in the family Oxalidaceae
• Seagrasses, including Eel grass (Zostera spp.)
• "Sleeping grass" (Mimosa pudica), a legume (family Fabaceae) and lawn weed
• Xyridaceae, known as the yellow-eyed grass family.

In Fiction

Grass plays a central role in two important science fiction catastrophe novels from the 1940s and 1950s, Ward Moore's Greener Than You Think, in which the world is slowly taken over by unstopable Bermuda Grass, and John Christopher's The Death of Grass, in which a plague that kills off all forms of grass threatens the survival of the human race.

See also

Germinating grass seedlings

• Lawn
• Pasture
• Grassland

References

• Chapman, G.P. and W.E. Peat. 1992. An Introduction to the Grasses. CAB Internat., Oxon, UK.
• Cheplick, G.P. 1998. Population Biology of Grasses. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
• Milne, L. and M. Milne. 1967. Living Plants of the World. Chaticleer Press, N.Y.
• Soderstrom, T.R., K.W. Hilu, C.S. Campbell, and M.E. Barkworth, eds. 1987. Grass Systematics and Evolution. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C.
• Went, Frits W. 1963. The Plants. Time-Life Books, N.Y.