Grass (Graminaceae) is an extensive family of endogenous plants comprising about 250 genera and 4500 species. The roots are fibrous; the stem is usually cylindrical and jointed varying length from a few centimetres to 30 metres in the case of the bamboo, (in the sugar-cane the stem is solid, but porous), and coated with silex; leaves, one to each node or joint, with a sheathing petiole; spikelets terminal, panicled, racemose, or spiked; flowers hermaphrodite or polygamous, destitute of true calyx or corolla, surrounded by a double set of bracts, the outer constituting the glumes, the inner the paleoe; stamens hypogynous, three or six; filaments long and flaccid; anthers versatile; ovary solitary, simple, with two (rarely three) styles, one-celled, with a single ovule; fruit known as a caryopsis, the seed and the pericarp being inseparable from each other.. The family includes many of the most valuable pasture-plants, all those which yield corn and the sugar-cane. The nutritious herbage and farinaceous seed furnished by many of them render them of incalculable importance, while the stems and leaves are useful for various textile and other purposes.
The more important divisions of the natural order of grasses are: (1) Panicaceoe, including the Paniceoe (millet, fundi, Guinea grass); the Andropogoneoe (sugar-cane, dhurra, lemon-grass) ; the Rottboellieoe (gama-grass); etc. (2) Phalarideoe (maize, Job's tears, canary-grass, foxtail-grass, soft-grass, Timothy grass). (3) Poaceoe, including the Oryzeoe (rice); Stipeoe (feather-grass, esparto); Agrosteoe (bent-grass); Aveneoe (oats, vernal grass); Festuceoe (fescue, meadow-grass, manna-grass, teff, cock's-foot grass, tussac grass, dog's-tail grass); Bambtiseoe (bamboo); Hordeoe (wheat, barley, rye, spelt, rye-grass, lyme-grass).
In its popular use the term grasses is chiefly applied to the pasture grasses as distinct from the cereals, etc. but it is also applied to some herbs, which are not in any strict sense grasses at all, e.g. rib-grass, scurvy and whitlow grass. After the culture of herbage and forage plants became an important branch of husbandry, it became customary to call the clovers, trefoils, sainfoin, and other flowering plants grown as fodder, artificial grasses, by way of distinction from the grasses proper, which were termed natural grasses. Of the pasture grasses, some thrive in meadows, others in marshes, on upland fields, or on bleak hills, and they by no means grow indiscriminately. Indeed the species of grass will often indicate the quality of the soil; thus, Holcus, Dactylis, and Bromus are found on sterile land, Festuca and Alopecurus on a better soil, Poa and Cynosurus are only found in the best pasture land. Research Grass
Abbreviations
Nature
Research Grass