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Yes Mom, rice, corn and wheat are grasses!
I had an entertaining phone call with my mother last week. We had been talking about allergies, which she had, and she had mentioned she knew pollen from trees may have caused it. But she also noted that grass might have caused it, although she wasn’t sure which part of the plant could be causing…
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A short Anna Maria Island Interlude
We spent the labor day weekend at a cottage right at the beach in Anna Maria Island in Florida, and I had an enjoyable time just reacquainting myself with some of the common grasses that populate the Florida coastline. Anna Maria Island (or AMI, as some of the local businesses like to say) itself is…
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Defining Grasses: The Amazing Awns of Grasses
If one were in the habit of identifying grasses, then the presence of visible and distinctive structures on the spikelets would be one way to ease the pain of such an endeavor. Fortunately, many grasses have long projections from these reproductive structures that go a long way towards helping the observer. These so-called awns are…
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The Story of Java
This is not an article about grasses. Instead, I just wanted to give my whole hearted thanks to the people who helped develop the programming language that later grew into the vast and diverse ecosystem that is the Java world today. Java now is ubiquitous. If you watch Netflix, Java is the backend that makes…
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The irony of Bermuda
It seems ironic that the namesake of the cosmopolitan Bermudagrass (Cynodon dactylon) is actually bereft of any native grasses at all. We visited the island of Bermuda earlier this month, and the first grass I encountered at the cruise dock was….wait for it…bermudagrass! Although C. dactylon is actually native to the old world, it picked…
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Flowering Buffaloes
More than two years after I discovered and marveled over the legendary Bouteloua dactyloides (buffalo grass) that had escaped into the lawns of Rutgers University, I visited again in June 2026, and this time found them flowering. The last time I saw them, it was easy to tell them apart from the rest of the…
Sejarah Poaceae (Volume 2)
The Story of Grasses – Grasslands and Grassy Open Ecosystems