Poaceae – Grass Family
Background Info
-This family includes major food crops worldwide. The domestication and cultivation of grass seeds allowed (forced?) hunter-gatherer cultures to stay longer in one place and develop farming techniques and villages.
-Grass stems are hollow and round with nodes where the leaves are located
-Almost all grass seeds are edible but they are not always practical to harvest or palatable.
-Grasses have a non-showy flower and are wind pollinated
–Ceres (cereal) is the Greek goddess of grass.
Barley (Hordeum)
Oats (Avena spp.)
Rice
(Oryza spp.)
Wheat (Triticum spp.)
Corn (Zea spp.)
Millet – a combination of several genera
Bamboo
Sugar Cane (Saccharum)
Wild Rice (Zizania)
Oats is the main medicinal grass
-Avena fatua is the wild species
-Avena sativa is the domestic species
-Herb forms are dried oat straw tea and fresh milky oat seed tincture
