Poaceae is (true grasses) the most economically important plant family because it includes cereals, wheat, rice, oats, barley, millet, and maize used for staple foods and feed for livestock. Some of the species, such as bamboo, thatch, and straw, are used for building materials, and other species are a source for biofuel—for example, maize is converted to ethanol.
Lawns and pastureland are composed of true grasses and 46% of the world’s arable land (land used for crops) is covered by rice, wheat, maize, barley, and sugar cane.
It is estimated that there is 11,000 to 13,000 species of grass (Poaceae). These species include cereal grasses, bamboos, natural grassland, lawns, and pastures.
Grasses can be annual or perennial. During winter’s cold, snow, and ice, grass lays dormant beneath the ground with most species turning brown. The melting ice and snow provides the moisture necessary to bring it back when the warming temperatures of Spring awakens the blades and they begin to grow, breaking through the soil.
By summer, the ground is green with new grass. A soft, lush carpet of Kentucky bluegrass, fescue, buffalograss, zoysia grass, and crabgrass.
How many remember running barefoot through and digging your toes into the soft grass in the summer or the smell that fills the air after mowing the lawn?
I love the texts that use grass as an example of Jesus’ promises in which we can place our full trust. What a loving God who covers the world with His perfect carpet.
“The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of God stands forever.” Isaiah 40:8
“Thus, Christ interpreted the message which He Himself had given to the lilies and the grass of the field. He desires us to read it in every lily and every spire of grass. His words are full of assurance, and tend to confirm trust in God.
“So wide was Christ’s view of truth, so extended His teaching, that every phase of nature was employed in illustrating truth. The scenes upon which the eye daily rests were all connected with some spiritual truth, so that nature is clothed with the parables of the Master.” Christ’s Object Lessons, 19, 20
“Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the over, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?” Matthew 6:30
Sources: wikipedia.org/wiki/Grass; wikipedia.org/wiki/Poaceae; americangardener.net/types-of-grasses-for-lawn