Grass and the Roots of Human Ignorance

Turf, grain, sod, weed, bamboo, hay, forage – grass is the fifth largest family of plants and essential to civilization:

• 10,000+ species of grass have been identified.
• 20% of Earth's vegetative cover is grasslands.
• 50% of calories consumed by all people are from rice, wheat and maize.
• 70% of all domesticated plants are grasses.
• 402 species of native and introduced grass species have been identified in the Rio Grande Valley.

Grass feeds our cattle, sheep, goats and other livestock. We use grasses to make sugar, paper, clothing, buildings, flooring, ethanol and much, much more.

And yet, as I took my morning walk, I realized that beyond the moniker, "grass," I could identify very few of the species around me. 

Why is that? Why are so many of the plants that surround me a mystery? I imagine myself an educated person, well read with an advanced degree. The sum of human knowledge is at my fingertips as never before in any generation. And yet I don't know the plants right outside my door. They are my neighbors (and potentially my food or tools), and yet I know little, just as I know few of my human neighbors.

It seems that I don't know very much at all!

I intended to write a blog post summarizing how to identify grasses. But as I dug into the matter, it turns out that there are lots of details to examine for classifying a grass, and difficult scientific language to boot. But a good place to start is Wikipedia. And following that (for those of you in Texas), "Guide to Texas Grasses (Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Service Series" by Robert B. Shaw, a book I intend to buy soon.

If grasses don't interest you, fine. But try to name the people, plants, animals and things outside your door just once, for an exercise, and learn how little you know. Be humbled.

#grass #philosophy #humility