The Edible Grass Wars - Part I

Realize it or not, here in Florida, many of us live in a grass war zone. The war unofficially declared back when speculative investors and contractors got together and decided to rape the land for all it's dollar worth -- building subdivision after subdivision.

There were some shady deals made in the midst of all this -- when non-native golf course like lawns (St. Augustine) became the mandatory norm. It didn't matter what these grass varieties did to the environment. It didn't matter what these grasses did to water conservation efforts in a state suffering a long time drought. All that mattered was "looking pretty" which really meant "selling a dream."

I'm not going to talk about all of that just yet, but do want people to be aware that common grasses have been waging a war for survival since time began and it's important for man to understand that:

Our Survival Depends Upon The Great Grass Family's Survival

In some ways, grasses are the most important of all the plants that grow. Directly or indirectly, grasses form the chief food of mankind and of the animals on which we depend for so many of the necessities and comforts of life.

A large part of the animal world is made up of grass-eaters, and the carnivorous creatures live on the grass-eaters. The statement of the Prophet Issiah, "All flesh is grass," is almost literally true.

It's no secret that all the cereals -- wheat, oats, barley, rye, corn, rice, millet, and sorghum -- are cultivated grasses. Most of us also know that various other grasses are grown as forage plants for animals, such as cows. A lot of people don't know it, but sugar cane, one of the most important plants outside of cereals -- is also a grass. It is a good thing for the world that grasses grow so freely and that they respond to the efforts of man to improve them.

The grass family is one of the numerous families of plants that produce roots, stems, leaves, flowers, and seeds -- like the buttercup plant family, or the rose plant family. The grasses form a big family for there are over five thousand known and different species.

There is no part of the world in which there are not many species of grasses. Some kinds are widely scattered over the earth, for example, the common reed grass. Some are confined to a narrow area, such as high mountain tops or certain parts of the tropics. In the temperate regions man finds grasses wherever he goes.

Though there are several hundred grasses native to North America, some of the commonest kinds now found here were brought from other countries and continents, sometimes intentionally, but also often accidentally.

The seeds of many species of grass are very small. Dozens of them made the trip across the oceans in the little patches of soil that had stuck to the spade of a colonist brought with him. Even the bit of clay that clung to his working shoes when he was taking his last walk through the fields of his old home might have served to transport the seeds of several species of grass to the new land.

The hay carried on shipboard to feed the animals that the early colonists soon brought over was often of a species not found here. When the ship was cleaned or the surplus brought on shore, some of the seeds may have reached favorable ground.

Some grasses have seeds with sharp hooks that cling to clothing and came across the ocean in this way. If the conditions of soil and temperature were suitable, these grasses flourished. Now, we never think of them as being immigrants.

If you think about it, we are so familiar with orchard grasses, such as timothy, rye, and meadow foxtail -- that in this country (even when we don't know what we are looking at) -- we take it for granted that they have always been here. On the contrary, all of these I just named and many others came from Europe. Just as men and women born in Europe became citizens of our country by naturalization, so we may say that these grasses have been naturalized.

The sugar cane and the sorghums were brought from the Old World. The original home of sugar cane was Asia and the sorghums originated in Africa. Fields of these are beautiful, but there are few sights more attractive than a great field of our own corn, which belongs to the Americas.

The grasses are wonderfully adapted to the different soils, climates and conditions in which they grow.

For most of us, our grasses look more or less alike. However, if you were to travel outside of the United States, you'd find some very remarkable members of the grass family. In india and China, for example, the great bamboos, which are actually grasses, can reach a height of one hundred feet or more in some varieties. Some even have a stem like the trunk of a small tree, over four feet in circumference. On others, the outside covering is so hard that when the stem is struck with an axe sparks of fire are seen to fly from it as though it were a piece of flint.

Found in Chile, is a different grass. This is a climbing species, and winds round and round the tall trees, hanging down from the branches in graceful festoons.

It is so tangled that the traveler can hew his way through it only at a very slow rate. To travel a mile where this climbing grass abounds would take two days.

Tall grasses are nothing new. There are several long, spiny points of seeds on some grasses. On the points are a number of short, still hairs that enable the seeds to make their way into the ground and keep a place there ready for germinating.

As the wind blows a seed and twists it round and round, the hairs entangle themselves among the other plants and entangle the seed to get a hold from which it can not be dislodged. The twisting works the point into the soil in the same way as twisting will work a drill bit into wood.

There is a grass that is a clinging enemy of sheep in pastures. When it's seeds fall on the back of sheep they become entangled in the wool, so that the sheep can not rid itself of them.

Sometimes the seed is gradually driven through the animal's skin, making a nasty wound that often causes death if not treated.

There are a number of grasses growing in Russia, Australia, and North America that cause the death of sheep in that way. The grasses that give life to sheep in some parts of the world have, therefore, very dangerous relatives that destroy them in other parts of the world.

As a rule, however, the grasses are the true friends of man. They have been great agents in the spread of civilization. They have enabled man to grow large quantities of food for the support of great populations, and they provide pastures for his flocks and herds.

Grasses, like other plants, have a constant fight for existence and structure and habits have no doubt been modified through the ages as the grasses adapted themselves to circumstances. Perhaps the most outstanding feature of a grass plant, is the extreme narrowness of the stem and the leaves compared with the height to which it grows.

A long time ago, it was noted that a factory chimney sixty feet high has a base some six feet in diameter, compared to the stem of a grass -- the rye for example -- though fifteen hundred millimeters high, is only three millimeters in diameter of the base.

In other words, man in building a chimney had to make the height only about ten times the base's diameter to be structurally sound. We fall far short of the rye grass plant, which can send up a structure five hundred times the height of its diameter.

This is a very marvelous achievement and means that if man could rival nature, a chimney with a base of five feet in diameter could be built to a height of a mile and a half. Not going to happen, as we all can guess.

A stem of grass is a wonderful structure. It is hollow in most species, though Indian corn and sugar-cane are exceptions in having solid stems. A considerable amount of silica gives the stem a stiff and wiry character that enables it to stand upright.

The rain may beat it down temporarily, but as soon as the sun shines again, the stem often jumps up as erect as ever.

Grass leaves are usually long and narrow with no stalk, but end in a long sheath that is rolled around the stem. One edge of the sheath is split down on the side opposite to that on which the blade is found.

The flowers occur in spikelets, or ears, and are arranged sometimes in the form of spikes, sometimes as racemes, or clusters -- with the flowers attached by short equal stalks at equal distances along the central stem. This sometimes occurs in panicles -- that is, with a loose, irregular arrangement like that of oats.

The fruits, or grain, are filled with the seed, their coats adhering to one another. The embryo, from which the new plant grows, lies to one side at the base of a mass of starchy endosperm, on which the young plant can feed as it develops.

The tiny flowers of grasses are very beautiful, but rather difficult to examine. However, by means of a microscope they can be seen in great detail. When walking through a meadow, we scarcely notice the colors of the grass flowers, but if we were to examine them closely, we'd find that they consist of a mass of delicate shades of greenish blue, purple, brown, and pink.

Most grasses are wind pollinated, but some, like Sweet Vernal grass, have been seen to be visited by flies. Still other grass flowers have an exquisite frangrance.

Grasses have three ways of multiplying -- by seeds, by underground stems or root stocks, and by stolons, or stems -- which grow along the surface.

After the plant has germinated, the leaf tip projects above the earth, and the plant remains in that position for a long time. The stem and ear stay underground, enclosed in a series of cylindrical sheaths that are peculiarly adapted for their duties.

The sheaths are very hard and tough and protect the young plant, not only from insects and drought, but also, being bad conductors of heat -- from sudden changes in temperature.

When the grass begins to grow it springs up very much as if it was a telescope being opened out.

Meanwhile, the root is fixing itself in the soil with root hairs, gathering nourishment and storing this up in the bud. New buds appear within the test sheaths, and in a suitable soil many stems spring from one seed and a tussock of grass results.

The leaves of grasses are wonderfully adapted to the conditions of the place where they grow. They come in some amazing varieties, from all over the world.

In Siberia and Argentina, for instance, they contain alternate strips or ridges, of hard cells and of delicate cells in grooves.

In dry, hot weather the delicate cells collapse and the leaf is wrapped around into a kind of cylinder, hard and uninviting to the animal that might otherwise devour it.

This rolling up of grass leaves is a very familiar feature of the grass plant family. The action is due to the presence of special cells, called motor cells, on the upper side of the leaf.

In some grasses, the blades are filled with delicate perfumes. A little pressure will bring them out.

When the air is dry and the cells are losing water rapidly, they contract and draw together the adjacent parts of the leaf.

Sometimes, in meadow grass, there are two rows of motor cells, one on each side of the midrib, and the leaf simply folds over, by their contractions. However, in most cases the leaf does not merely fold over once, but rolls up into a tube.

Sweet grasses whose scientific name is hierochloe ordorata, have a number of common names, such as:

• Buffalo grass
• Bison grass
• Manna grass
• Holy grass
• Mary's grass
• Seneca grass
• Vanilla grass

They are important ingredients in both herbal and folk remedies, as well as for use in distilling beverages.

When We Speak of Green Green Grasses of Home

Finally, one fact that most people don't know is that the average grass plant gives out its own weight of water in twenty-four hours in hot, dry weather. It has been found that a square foot of turf will yield more than one and a fifth pints of water in that time.

Long pasture grasses, however, give off much more -- over four pints to the square foot, or about one hundred and six tons of moisture to the acre.

Why would this be important? It all has to do with our delicate balance that sustains life here on earth. Just as we need trees, we need grasses, more than most all of us know.