Talk:Grass

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 Grass is within the scope of WikiProject Plants, an attempt to better organize information in articles related to plants and botany. For more information, visit the project page.
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[edit] When did grass as we know it first appear?

I heard on the DiscChan that it hadn't even appear yet during the Cretaceous period.

-G

Modern grass may not have, but there certainly were plants with the structure of a single narrow leaf growing straight up from the ground! bd2412 T 01:44, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Edible grass

Stupid question but is grass edible to humans or any other creatures? If not, why not? A list of animal families which eat it would be useful? Thanks, --134.225.163.117 08:03, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes. In fact, the true grass family Poaceae includes some of the staple food grains grown around the world. Rice, wheat, and oat, for example, are in the grass family. However, if you define "edible" as directly eating the grass leaves, then I'm not sure if any grasses are edible. SCHZMO ✍ 19:21, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
Please have a look at [1]. I know it's just a t-shirt, but the numbers seem reasonable, except for dietary fibers and carbohydrates, which i would expect to be more abundant. Is there any way to really find it out ?-- ExpImptalkcon 20:02, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion prior to move from Grass to Grass (disambiguation)

This page was just moved from grass to Family Poaceae last week. I am trying to establish some professional consistency in the botanical treatments by not relying on sometimes out-dated and generally always inprecise common names. Please do not move things around to a lower level of organization. - Marshman 06:16, 27 Aug 2003 (UTC)

What's the difference between a grass and a member of the Poaceae family? The article seems to imply that they are the same. If they are the same, then our naming convention (specifically Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names)) is that the title should be grass. The convention is well accepted, and there is a large number of pages which use common names instead of technically correct names. -- Tim Starling 06:27, 27 Aug 2003 (UTC)

There are many plants that are "grasses" that are not Poaceae (see seagrass). Poaceae is the correct botanical term for true grasses about which the article purports to discuss. The problem with common names will always be that they are inherently imprecise. I do not think all levels of taxonomy treated in Wikipedia need be titled by botanical terms, and common names are especially useful at the genus-species level. But down to that point we have pages that are an unorganized mess of botanical and common names as titles. I thought it would be more professional to discuss each family under its correct botanical designation. That provides more learning experience for the user than the "well we call that grass in my neck of the woods" approach that you have now. - Marshman 06:36, 27 Aug 2003 (UTC)

To make a point (but actally proved an interesting addition, I think), I listed grasses in Hawaii that are NOT true grasses on this disambiguation page. It should be easy to double or triple this list if more places in the world chime in. Hopefully, this will justify having true grasses in their own article. - Marshman 17:50, 27 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Okay, I think that answers my question. The current article is more or less fine with me. Perhaps a bit too prescriptive -- if botanists use one definition and everyone else uses another, that doesn't mean everyone else is wrong, it means there are two definitions. But that can be fixed over time.
The incoming links need lots of work. -- Tim Starling 04:43, 28 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Yes, I am working on it. I fixed all of the links to grass that should be to Poaceae - those that clearly need to go to true grasses. I'll recheck the others, but many are so general that a link to the disambiguation page actually makes sense to me (i.e., link to lawn or pasture would be a meaningful). From your comment about definitions of "grass" I believe you are not a biologist. In botany, as in most of the sciences, there is always a more exact definition than that used by the public at large. Scientists do not want to impose these definitions on others, but cannot work with the more general "public" definitions -- too ambiguous to permit work to proceed among scientists all over the world. Every discipline defines its terms in the way that works best for those participating in the discipline. For this reason I think the disambiguation page in Wikipedia deserves a lot more respect. It is where all of those disciplines branch out. Great place for clarifying different perspectives in language. Poaceae is the Botany "grass", but obviously not the only "grass" in the language. I predict disambiguation will make Wikipedia stand out from all the other knowledge sources on the net - Marshman 06:03, 28 Aug 2003


[edit] Page editing problem

I realize this off topic, but whenever I access the grass page, the search bar and toolbox disapear. I just thought id toss that out there. - Vipersp51 10:32, 03/02/06 (UTC)

Strange. I do not see that. Maybe you should try some other articles to see how general the problem is on your computer. - Marshman 18:27, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

--A section on how to plant grass would be nice. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.169.200.17 (talk • contribs) .

Sorry, but Wikipedia is not a "how-to" guide. See Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information, number 8. SCHZMO ✍ 19:16, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Naming

Does grass "correctly" refer to plants in the family Poaceae (as cedar "correctly" refers to those in the genus Cedrus [but other plants are also named "cedar"]) or is the name grass equally acceptable for all the plants listed on this page. SCHZMO ✍ 19:30, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Grass popular??

Quote: Grasses are popular in rain forests in South America and in other parts of the world.

What does this mean??? Han-Kwang 12:50, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Maybe a linguistic gaffe confusing "popular" for something to do with population? —Preceding unsigned comment added by TariqAlSuave (talk • contribs)
Maybe it's because rain forest occupants really like the grass? ;-) bd2412 T 07:27, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Page content

As per the WikiProject Disambiguation this page should conform to the Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages). All the descriptive material duplicating the existing Poaceae page should be removed, and the ==Types of grass== section bulleted. - MPF 09:28, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

There is already a Grass disambiguation page. If you think it should be merged, use that tag. --Usgnus 14:13, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
They're actually different types of disambig pages - this one is for all the plants that are called 'grass' but aren't real grasses; the other is for things called grass that aren't plants (police informers, etc). MPF 15:02, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
I think that's an unnecessary layer of complexity. The way I see it, here are some options:
--Usgnus 15:05, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
I'd go with option 2 (merge Grass (disambiguation) here) - MPF 15:24, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
The page as it stands now is not a disambiguation page. If the page is to remain as it is now, the disambiguation tag should be removed. It may be valid to consider having it remain a general introductory page on plant-type grasses, I don't know. But if this is returned to something similar to a pre-June 11, 2006 state, which is more like a typical disambiguation page, then I see no reason to have two separate disambiguation pages for the same term. older ≠ wiser 15:35, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
That was my intention - the additions from the 11 June version largely duplicate the existing Poaceae page - MPF 15:50, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
Here's another option:
  • copy types of grasses to Grass (disambiguation), which I've already done, remove the types of grasses from this article, and keep the remainder of the page as "a general introductory page on plant-type grasses". --Usgnus 15:45, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
Not sure if that would work well - MPF 15:50, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
I support making this a redirect to Poaceae or Grass (disambiguation). Any kind of split disambiguation page, whether according to MPFs or Usgnus suggestion, is too confusing. --Smack (talk) 16:23, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
This is not a split disambiguation page. This is an article about "grass", a maleable concept which covers Poaceae and related plants. Removing the list of the grass-like plants merely makes the article less informative. The Grass (disambiguation) page, by contrast, is not entirely about grass, but also about people named Grass, films with Grass in the name, and other uses of the term. Note, by the way, that Grass can not redirect to Grass (disambiguation); it would have to be the other way around. Primary article titles do not redirect to disambiguation titles. Cheers! bd2412 T 01:51, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I've added a bit to clarify for the lay person what is and what is not technically a "grass" - I venture that most people looking up "grass" in Wikipedia do not have botony degrees, and are likely to be helped by an article that explains these things in general terms. bd2412 T 01:57, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

It was a disambig page until 9 June 2006, when someone (presumably unaware of the Poaceae page) greatly expanded the page with a lot of detail that should have been put on the Poaceae page, not here. I agree that Grass should not redirect to Grass (disambiguation), which is why I've suggested the reverse (i.e., merge Grass (disambiguation) into Grass) - MPF 08:50, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
It was an article (and not a disambig page) in November of 2005. It had earlier been a redirect to Poaceae, which had been objected to because many plants referred to as "grass" are not in that family. Now it is at least the seed of an article that will bud and grow int a flower that will help steer those of us who are not botanists away from confusion. Cheers! bd2412 T 13:25, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Disagree with merge There seems to be enough content related to the concept of 'grass' that is not specific to 'true grasses' which justifies the existence of the 'Grass' article, as such content could not be on the 'Grass (dab)' page, which is necessary due to the non-botanical meanings. —TJJFV 14:24, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Grass, most popular plant on earth?

Just been watching 'Planet Earth' on the BBC and Attenborough (spelling) noted that Grass is the most popular plant on the planet (i.e. more grass than any other plant). Since people here seem to know plenty about grass is this worth adding to the main article?

Also i removed the statement about 'grass being greener' as a reference to the greeness of grass. The statement is about wanting what you cannot have (and that things look better from a distance than maybe they are), rather than anything to do with grass of itself.

Yes that seems like a valid point. As for removing reference about the greeness of grass, I think it should be kept but moved to a section about folklore. Think outside the box 12:42, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Semi-protection

I went through the history of this article and found that the vast majority of edits are eitehr juvenile vandalism, or reversion of same - with the vandalism mostly coming from IPs. So, I'm semi-protecting the article for a while to see if that shakes out any regular vandals. I'll unprotect on request if anyone thinks this is a bad idea. Cheers! bd2412 T 01:48, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

The quantity of vandalism and the response to my last request for protection is a joke - [2]. I tried; I failed. It should be perfectly obvious to most reasonable people that there are an ongoing problem here, even if the protection list admins are too shortsighted to see it. -- John (Daytona2 · Talk · Contribs) 17:54, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
It's been semi-protected before, and I have just done so again. Until October. Hopefully by then the more persistent vandals will forget it exists (or will grow up some), but I have no high hopes that this article will cease to be a vandal magnet. bd2412 T 18:51, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
Good work ! It's just annoying that the protection admins haven't reacted sensibly. I think that your hope is in vein, in my experience there are always plenty more vandals to replace those who stop. Being the nickname for Marijuana, it's a natural target. If the vandalism occurs again, I'd support indefinate semi or indeed full protection. Cheers -- John (Daytona2 · Talk · Contribs) 15:41, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox?

I was surprised to see this article doesn't have an infobox most lifeforms, species, genus etc do; is the term "grass" to broad to give an infobox correctly. This article says grass is monocotyledon, that article also has no infobox. I don't know all the info could anyone who does create the infoboxes?

Carlwev 23:02, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism

Why is this page such a huge target for vandals? I can think of many more interesting and topical pages to vandalize. C1k3 04:14, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I suspect the vandal appeal derives from an alternative meaning accorded to the word, which may be most familiar to those likely to vandalize. Cheers! bd2412 T 04:54, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
I thought that too, but most of the edits appear to be nonsensical.... well, okay, now that I think about it, it makes sense. :) C1k3 06:02, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
I really wish there were some way to remove the vandalism edits from the edit history of the page altogether. bd2412 T 07:24, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sanskrit?

I removed the following from the article:

It is interesting to note that in Sanskrit language- the word " go grassum". "Grassum" means 'One mouthful of food' and 'Go' means Cow. Thus , go grassum, means a mouthful of food for the cow.

I did a fairly intensive Google search and have not found any evidence that grassum means anything in Sanskrit. bd2412 T 19:25, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Under exposed picture

Image:Grass_covered_house_in_Iceland_1972.jpg is so underexposed that I don't think it's suitable for this (or any) article. -- John (Daytona2 · Talk · Contribs) 23:17, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks :-) -- John (Daytona2 · Talk · Contribs) 00:06, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
No problem, although I think the replacement image is pretty far away. I wish someone would upload a better grass roof picture. bd2412 T 01:40, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Grass Growth rate

Kind of an odd question, but I've always wondered what is the actual growth rate of grass? Rafi5288 (talk) 00:06, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

It's probably variable, and very specific to species, climate, and conditions. Maybe time of year, too. bd2412 T 00:31, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] dcb

hi —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.13.52.207 (talk) 20:28, 8 May 2008 (UTC)