Botany - Gramineae Family
Botany - Gramineae Family
Botany - Gramineae Family
GRAMINEAE FAMILY
Vegetative characters
Habit: Annual (Oryza) or perennial (Saccharum) herbs; rarely tree (bamboos).
Roots: Fibrous, adventitious.
Stem: Herbaceous; cylindrical; jointed, hollow at internodes. Sometimes, forms rhizome or runner.
Stem of grasses is called a culm.
Leaves: Sessile with long sheathing base; alternate; simple; ligulate; parallel venation.
Reproductive characters
Inflorescence: Spike of spikelets or panicles of spiklets.
Flower: Pedicillate; bracteate, two bracts palea and lemma enclose flower or floret; lemma contain
bristle like awns zygomorphic; Bisexual (Oryza) or rarely unisexual (Zea mays); hypogynous.
Perianth: Represented by two or three scale like lodicules.
Androecium: 3 stamens in a whorl, sometimes 1,2 or 6; polyandrous; anther versatile.
Gynoecium: Monocarpellary with superios unilocular ovary containing a single anatropous ovule;
stigma usually 2; feathery; basal placentation.
Fruits: Mostly one-seeded Caryopsis (fruit wall is completely fused with the seed coat)
Seed: Endospermic
Economic Importance : This family has greater importance than all other families of the flowering
plants.
• Food: Triticum aestivum (Wheat), Avena sativa, Zea mays (corn), Oryza sativa (rice), Hordeum
vulgare (barley), Scale cereale (rye), Penisetum typhoideum (Pearl millet, Bajra), Sorghum
vulgare (Jowar).
• Fodders: The dried stems and leaves of the cereal crops are used as fodder for the cattle.
• Sugar: Saccharum officinarum (sugar cane).
• Alcohol and beverages: For example, wine is prepared from rye, corn and rum molasses
form sugar cane.
• Ropes: Leaves of Saccharum spontaneum (Kans); Erianthus munja (Munj).
• Bamboo: Used as building material and for thatching huts, making boats, carts pipes etc.