POACEAE Habit and leaf form. Herbs, or shrubs, or arborescent, or lianas. Normal plants (usually), or switch-plants (occasionally, e.g.

Spartochloa, Xerochloa). Leaves well developed, or much reduced (rarely). Annual, or biennial, or perennial; with a basal aggregation of leaves, or with neither basal nor terminal aggregations of leaves. Young stems breaking easily at the nodes, or not breaking easily at the nodes (in bamboos). (0.003)0.0130(40) m high; when perennial, rhizomatous, or tuberous (rarely). Self supporting, or climbing (or decumbent); the climbers stem twiners, or root climbers, or scrambling. Hydrophytic to xerophytic; when hydrophytic, rooted. Leaves of hydrophytes submerged and emergent, or submerged, emergent, and floating. Not heterophyllous (usually), or heterophyllous (occasionally). Leaves evergreen, or deciduous; minute to large; alternate; nearly always initially distichous (very rarely spiral Micraira, the Orcuttieae); flat, or folded, or rolled, or terete (rarely); herbaceous (usually), or leathery, or membranous (rarely); sessile, or petiolate; sheathing. Leaf sheaths tubular; with free margins, or with joined margins. Leaves not gland-dotted; without marked odour (usually), or aromatic (occasionally); simple. Lamina entire; setaceous, or acicular, or linear to obovate; parallel-veined (usually), or pinnately veined to palmately veined (rarely); without cross-venules, or cross-venulate. Leaves nearly always ligulate (though the ligule is often reduced to a fringe of hairs or even to papillae, sometimes lacking on upper leaves, as in Echinochloa, and totally absent from the lilylike leaves of Neostapfia and the Orcuttieae). Lamina margins nearly always entire; flat, or revolute, or involute. Prophylls 1. Leaves with a persistent basal meristem, and basipetal development. Vernation conduplicate, or involute, or revolute, or convolute, or plicate (rarely). General anatomy. Plants with silica bodies. Chlorenchyma without peg cells. Accumulated starch other than exclusively pteridophyte type. Leaf anatomy. Epidermis nearly always conspicuously differentiated into long and short cells; nearly always containing silica bodies. Abaxial epidermis papillose, or not papillose. Mucilaginous epidermis absent. Stomata mainly confined to one surface, or on both surfaces; paracytic. Guard-cells grass type (inevitably with an exception Neostapfia). Hairs present, or absent; eglandular, or eglandular and glandular; unicellular, or unicellular and multicellular. Unicellular hairs unbranched. Multicellular hairs uniseriate; unbranched. Adaxial hypodermis usually absent. Lamina usually dorsiventral; usually without secretory cavities. Cystoliths absent. The mesophyll not containing mucilage cells; usually without calcium oxalate crystals (and never with raphides). Midrib conspicuous, or not conspicuous; with a single bundle, a simple arc, or a complex. Main veins vertically transcurrent, or embedded. Minor leaf veins without phloem transfer cells (in an unspecified large sample, including Arundinaria). Vessels present; end-walls simple, or scalariform and simple. Stem anatomy. Stems with solid internodes, or with spongy internodes, or with hollow internodes (commonly). Young stems cylindrical (usually), or oval in section. Secretory cavities absent. Cork cambium absent. Primary vascular tissue in two or more rings of bundles, or in scattered bundles. Secondary thickening absent. Xylem with vessels. Vessel end-walls simple (usually), or scalariform and simple. Sieve-tube plastids P-type; type II (b). Root anatomy. Root xylem with vessels; vessel end-walls simple, or scalariform and simple (then mainly simple). Reproductive type, pollination. Plants hermaphrodite, or monoecious, or andromonoecious, or gynomonoecious, or dioecious, or androdioecious, or gynodioecious, or polygamomonoecious; viviparous (occasionally), or not viviparous. Floral nectaries absent (nectaries absent). Pollination almost exclusively anemophilous (with possible exceptions in South American forest-floor Olyreae). Inflorescence, floral, fruit and seed morphology. Flowers aggregated in

inflorescences (these consisting of at least one spikelet); in spikelets. The ultimate inflorescence unit (the spikelet) cymose (e.g. Panicoideae), or racemose (e.g. Pooideae). Inflorescences terminal, or axillary; with 150 florets and vestiges grouped into characteristic spikelets in association with specialised bracts termed glumes, lemmas and paleas, the spikelets variously gathered into simple or compound panicles, racemes, spikes, heads or fascicles; with involucral bracts, or without involucral bracts; spatheate, or espatheate. Flowers bracteate (in that the spikelets normally exhibit glumes and lemmas, and the other inflorescence branches are sometimes spatheate or spatheolate); bracteolate (if the palea, when present, is interpreted as a bracteole), or ebracteolate; minute to small. Perigone tube absent. Hypogynous disk absent. Perianth vestigial (if the lodicules are interpreted as perianth), or absent (the lodicules being sometimes absent); 0, or (1)23(6); (lodicules) free to joined; 1 whorled. Androecium (1)23, or 4 (rarely), or 6, or 6120 (Ochlandra). Androecial members free of the perianth, or adnate; usually free of one another, or coherent (occasionally, the filaments are joined to one another or to the lodicules). Androecium exclusively of fertile stamens. Stamens (1)23, or 4, or 6120; filantherous. Anthers basifixed (sagittate); non-versatile; dehiscing via pores, or dehiscing via short slits, or dehiscing via longitudinal slits; extrorse, or introrse, or latrorse; tetrasporangiate. Endothecium developing fibrous thickenings. The endothecial thickenings girdling. Microsporogenesis successive. The initial microspore tetrads isobilateral, or T-shaped, or linear. Anther wall initially with one middle layer; of the monocot type. Tapetum glandular. Pollen shed as single grains. Pollen grains aperturate; 1 aperturate; ulcerate. The ulcus operculate; with an annulus. Interapertural exine not scrobiculate. Interapertural interstitium columellate. Pollen grains 3-celled (recorded in 23 genera). Gynoecium theoretically 2(3) carpelled. The pistil 1 celled. Gynoecium syncarpous; synovarious to eu-syncarpous; superior. Ovary 1 locular. Styles 1, or 2(3); free to partially joined; attenuate from the ovary, or from a depression at the top of the ovary; apical, or lateral. Stigmas (1)23; dry type; papillate, or non-papillate; Group I type (usually), or Group II type (rarely, IIB). Placentation basal to parietal (stachysporous, the ovule fused to the adaxial wall). Ovules in the single cavity 1; sessile (usually adnate); non-arillate; (hemi-) campylotropous, or hemianatropous (see Anton de Triquell, 1887); usually bitegmic; tenuinucellate (especially Pooideae), or pseudocrassinucellate (mostly). Outer integument contributing to the micropyle (rarely?), or not contributing to the micropyle (and rarely the integuments are variously reduced or absent). Embryo-sac development Polygonum-type (the Poaceae variant, i.e. with dividing antipodals). Antipodal cells formed; characteristically proliferating (to 300 or more cells in Sasa paniculata); ephemeral. Synergids sometimes hooked; haustorial (in danthonioids), or non-haustorial (generally). Endosperm formation nuclear. Embryogeny asterad. Fruit non-fleshy (usually), or fleshy (occasionally); indehiscent; a caryopsis (usually), or capsular-indehiscent (occasionally, a utricle), or achene-like (not infrequently), or a nut, or a berry. Dispersal unit the fruit, or the inflorescence. Seeds nearly always endospermic. Endosperm not ruminate (very rarely ruminate); not oily. Seeds with starch. Embryo well differentiated. Cotyledons (usually identified with the scutellum) 1. Embryo achlorophyllous (9/13); straight, or bent. Seedling. Hypocotyl internode absent. Mesocotyl present (e.g. Panicoideae, Chloridoideae), or absent (e.g. Pooideae). Seedling collar conspicuous (in the form of the epiblast), or not conspicuous. Cotyledon hyperphyll compact (reduced to the haustorium within the caryopsis); non-assimilatory. Coleoptile present. Seedling cataphylls present (in some bambusoid genera), or absent (mostly). First leaf dorsiventral. Primary root ephemeral (virtually absent). Physiology, biochemistry. Cyanogenic, or not cyanogenic. Cynogenic constituents tyrosine-derived. Alkaloids present (sometimes, isoquinoline,

pyrrolizidine and indole), or absent. Proanthocyanidins present (rarely, only in Panicoideae and Chloridoideae, and there in only trace amounts), or absent; when present, cyanidin. Flavonols present (only in Glyceria and Melica), or absent (60 genera); when present, quercetin, or kaempferol and quercetin. Ellagic acid absent. Arbutin absent. Saponins/sapogenins present (rarely), or absent. Plants accumulating free oxalates (e.g. Setaria anceps), or not accumulating free oxalates. C3, or C4, or C3 and C4, or C3-C4 intermediate. C3 physiology recorded directly in 366 genera: see Watson and Dallwitz database. C4 physiology recorded directly in 335 genera: see Watson and Dallwitz database. C3-C4 intermediacy in Neurachne minor, Steinchisma (Panicum) decipiens, S. hians (= milioides), S. spathellosum (= schenckii). Anatomy C4 type (in 328 genera), or non-C4 type (in 366 genera). Geography, cytology. Holarctic, Paleotropical, Neotropical, Cape, Australian, and Antarctic. Frigid zone, temperate, sub-tropical, and tropical. Cosmopolitan. Taxonomy. Subclass Monocotyledonae. Dahlgren et al. Superorder Commeliniflorae (dubiously); Poales. APG 3 core angiosperms; Superorder Lilianae; commelinid Monocot; Order Poales. Diversity: often tufted (caespitose) perennial herbs, also many annuals, rhizomatous or stoloniferous perennials and some 'woody' types (bamboo) - ca. 700 genera and 10, 000 species.This family includes many important domesticates, including the world's most important cash crop - Triticum aestivum (Wheat-Eurasia-spikelet), its most important food crop - Oryza sativa (Rice-Asia-spikelet), the monoecious Indian Corn (Zea mays-Americas), and the most extensive crop of the local Brazos bottoms - Sorghum bicolor (Sorghum, Milo - Africa). Perhaps just as important, from an economic point of view, are the suite of taxa used as forage for domesticated animals and the creation of human-dominated environments (turf grasses). Many of these have 'escaped' cultivation and, especially in disturbed areas, established a strong position in our local flora. Distribution: Worldwide, present in abundance in just about all habitats and ecological zones and often forming the dominant element in open areas (prairie, savannah, etc.). The Texas flora includes 151 genera and 631 species, including one listed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as endangered, Texas Wild Rice (Zizania texana) (see also a full listing of North American taxa - 334 genera, 2980 species and also here). Floral structure:

flowers can be unisexual Significant features: Small, reduced flowers on (often) tufted or caespitose plants with linear, sheathing leaves. Differing from the Cyperaceae with its round (terete in cross section) stems ('culms'), hollow (not pithy or solid) at the internodes, and leaves 2-ranked or arranged in 2 rows. Sheathing leaf bases of the are also often 'open' or loosely connected to the culm, often showing a ligule at the point where the leaf blade meets the sheath. Reproductive structures are distinct in that the inflorescences are made up of 'subinflorescences' known as spikelets. The grass spikelet is defined by two basal 'sterile bracts' or glumes. These subtend either a single (simple spikelet) or several (compound) florets. The term 'floret', when applied to grasses, refers to the flower and two 'fertile' bracts that usually enclose the flower, the lemma and palea. The perianth is reduced to vestigial structures, lodicules, positioned beneath the ovary and the fruit is single-seeded with the testa adnate to the pericarp, a caryopsis. In contrast to most large families, the fruit is usually not needed for species identification.

Grasses have evolved in response to grazing selective pressure, probably applied initially by large ungulate populations that once inhabited the earth's prairie areas. Their strategy has been one of accommodation, as opposed to defense, in that the grass leaf carries an intercalary meristem that allows continued growth after grazing (or mowing). This adaptation has allowed grasses to persist and diversify, relative to other possible competitors (most dicots), in the presence of strong grazing pressure.