Grass Family

Western civilisation is based on the cultivation of wheat, a practice that seems to have started in Mesopotamia, the area that is currently Iraq. Wheat is a member of the Grammacidae, i.e. it is a member of the grass family. The cultivation of wheat spread from the Middle East across Europe. Settlers took wheat seeds with them to the Americas and started to cultivate wheat there. Those settlers from Great Britain took wheat that had evolved to grow in British conditions. These wheat varieties would grow on the eastern seaboard but were not successful in the American Midwest. Subsequently, however, wheat from Eastern and Central Europe was found to thrive in the Midwest. The cultivation of wheat also spread to Canada and Australia. 

Wheat is the major source grain for bakery ingredients. The cultivation of wheat is the basis of western civilisation. Botanically wheat is a member of the grass family (Grammacidae). Bread making depends on the proteins in wheat. 

Wheat, rye, and barley have a common ancestral origin in the grass family. Oats are more distantly related to the analogous proteins in wheat, rye, and barley and the oat prolamins (avenin) have substantially lower proline content. Avenin accounts for 5-15% of the total protein in oats, whereas in wheat, barley, and rye, prolamins constitute 40-50% of the total protein (Kilmartin et al., 2006). Some investigators believe that there are similarities between the protein structure of oats and some wheat-like sequences, which may indicate that large amounts of oats could potentially be toxic to patients with celiac disease. However, the putative toxic amino acid sequences are less frequent in avenin than in other prolamins, which explains the less toxic nature of oats (Arentz-Hansen et al., 2004 Ellis and Ciclitira, 2001, 2008 Shan et al., 2005 Vader et al., 2002, 2003). 

Com (Zea mays L.) is a leading cereal crop in the United States and is also referred to as maize. Com is classified in the tribe Maydeae of the Gramineae or grass family. The com plant may have developed from teosinte, a wild grass found in Mexico and Guatemala. The oldest evidence of com found in South America dates back to about 1000 BC and in North America to at least 2000 BC. Com was a major food and daily bread of the Mayans, Aztecs, and Incas of Central and South America. Spaniards who came with Christopher Columbus and were sent to explore the interior of Cuba in 1492 returned with a report of a sort of grain they call maize which was well tasted, baked, dried, and made into flour (Wallace and Brown, 1956). 

Bamboo is often used in the same ways that wood is, for furniture and as a building material. But bamboo is actually in the Poaceae, or grass family. Two genera, Bambusa and Phyllostachys, produce bamboo that is used for construction, weaving, papermaking, and for food. 

Lateral connate stipules are such as join and run up with the petiole to form a structure which is called a ligule. This structure is common to the Graminese or Grass family. 

I. Order Graminales. —Graminem or Grass Family.—Mostly herbs with cylindric, hollow jointed stems whose nodes are swollen. The leaves are alternate, with long split sheaths and a ligule. Flow-... 

Bminsma s work with DNOC on rye suggests that DNBP might be effective on other members of the grass family. Results on wheat (unpublished data) at Illinois and Indiana have been suflBciently encouraging to continue studies in Indiana. Earlier applications need to be tested. 

Two or three experiments have been carried out at Purdue on soybeans. The results— no grain yield increase—did not justify further study. On this scanty data the DNBP yield enhancement effect is possibly limited to members of the grass family. 

Sorghum, S. bicolor, is a member of the grass family Poaceae. Believed to have evolved about 11.9 million years ago 48) in Africa, there is evidence this plant was one of our earliest cultivated crops, cultivated as early as 5,000 years ago 49). The grain is used for food and in brewing. Worldwide, sorghum is the... 

Feuillet, C., and B. Keller. 2002. Comparative genomics in the grass family Molecular characterization of grass genome structure and evolution. Ann Bot (Lond) 89 3-10. 

Hsiao C, Jacobs SWL, Chatterton NJ, Asay KH. A molecular phylogeny of the grass family (Poaceae) based on the sequences of nuclear ribosomal DNA (ITS). Austral Sys. Bot. 11 667 688, 1999. 

Wheat, barley, and rye are classified in the same subfamily (Festucoideae) and tribe (Triticeae) of the grass family (Gramineae), and this close relationship is reflected in the structures of their prolamin storage proteins. Only in wheat, however, do these proteins form a cohesive mass (gluten). Barley and rye are diploids, each with seven pairs of chromosomes, while wheat species are diploid, tetraploid, or hexaploid (Figure 3.14). 

Corn oil (maize oil) Zea mays L, Graminae, grass family)... 

Bamboo, belonging to the grass family Poaceae, is an abundant renewable natural resource capable of producing maximum biomass per unit area and time as compared to counterpart timber species (Tewari 1995). The chemical composition of D. strictus has been studied, which was found to contain Cross and Bevan cellulose 68.0% and lignin 32.20% (Singh et al. 1991). Its hemicellulose (18.8%) has also been shown to consist of xylose 78.0%, arabinose 9.4%, and uronic acid 12.8% (Tewari 1995). 

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