Useful Grasses in Britain

Two common grasses in a local meadow: Yorkshire Fog (Holcus lanatus) and Sweet vernal grass (Anthoxanthum odoratum)

The family of Poaceae, which is the last family in Stace’s  and most other modern Floras) has 5 Sub-families and 16 tribes.

It is by far the largest family in the temperate world as grasses flourish in nearly every habitat!

Stace does mention many obvious non-natives which have naturalized in several places, as well as crop plants which have been grown in the B.I. for many centuries.

Many people find grasses hard to identify and this is mostly due because of their small parts, which often need  be looked at through magnifying glasses and of course they are mainly all green!

However with a bit of practise and knowledge into which diagnostics to look for, they are not too difficult. It can get adictive as the flowers are often beautiful!

I use colour coding for easy reading! Blue background is general interesting info (although I hope you find it all interesting!!). Green is about all the uses except for medicinal uses or if there is a warning in which case I use a pink background. Amber coloured background is for all the cereal grasses this time. Pictures by Matt Summers and Mike Poulton unless stated.

Contents

Gallery of grasses (by Mike Poulton)
Identifying Grasses
Ornamental Uses of Grasses
How to make a standard lawn more attractive!
Mixes of grasses for hard wearing and fine turf
Wildlife Uses
Main uses of Grasses

Main important grasses:

Marram Grass or Ammophila arenaria

Leymus or Leymus arenarius

Common Reed or Phragmites australis

Floating Sweet grass or Glyceria fluitans

Small Sweet-grass or Glyceria declinata

Perennial Rye Grass or Lolium perenne

Italian Rye Grass or Lolium multiflorum

(Mainly) Medicinal Grasses

Sweet Vernal Grass or Anthoxanthum oderatum

Sweet/Holy Grass or Hierochloe odorata

 Darnel or Lolium termulentum

Couch Grass/Twitch or Elytrigia repens

Cultivated Grains in our temperate world:

Wheat or Triticum

Rye or Secale

Barley or Hordeum

Oats or Avena

Food and Drink
Fodder and Bedding
– Other Uses
– Medicinal Uses
An edited account of our cultivated grains

Here a gallery of pictures by Mike Poulton of various grasses .

For the main text see page 2.

Identifying Grasses

To help you with identification, there is a good website with pictures you can find here:

But a good flora is useful and I still like my old flora of grasses by C.E. Hubbard, which was first published in 1954. I’ve got a third edition reprinted in 1985.

Several grasses have changed names though and to find the correct name we have to refer to Stace or a specialised flora such as ‘Grasses of the British Isles’. Wikipedia should also list the correct names as well as its synonyms (= former names).

The Poacea could be mistaken with sedges and rushes which are related as they are in the same order of Poales, but whereas the grasses have hollow stems, the sedges and rushes have solid stems. For more info see here

Here below you’ll find several links to  floras  about grasses, sedges and rushes:

or there are also attractive fold-out card of grasses:

“Covering 30 species, this new fold-out chart should enable everyone to put a name to some of the most common species of grass found in Britain and Ireland. A special feature of this chart is a simple-to-use lateral key to enable users to make the quick identification quickly.

This chart is part of the FSC’s range of fold-out charts, designed to help users identify a wide range of plants and animals. Each chart is laminated to make it shower-proof and robust for use outdoors. Clear colour illustrations and text by experts in the subject make these valuable resources for all age groups”.

Ornamental Uses of Grasses

Apart from the fact that grasses are really beautiful and many can be grown as an ornamental plant in your borders, they are also useful in other ways, although not so many in the B.I. as you might expect for a large family.

A small selection of native grasses which are ornamental enough for your garden are:

Avena fatua (Oat Grass), Brachypodium sylvaticum, Briza (Quaking-Grass), Bromus spp.,  Calamagrostis spp., Deschampsia spp., Melica spp. (Melick), Molinia caerulea (Purple Moor Grass), Phalaris arundinacea and especially the Gardener’s Garters,  Phragmitis australis or Common Reed, Sesleria spp., and many more.

Yorkshire Fog (Holcus lanatus) with Buttercups behind creates an attractive picture.

En masse, mixed with native wild-flowers, most grasses are very attractive when in flower. Each habitat has its own particular dominant grass in combination with the native flowers.

Many more people should experiment with leaving their lawn uncut, instead of going for boring, high-maintenance, short-cut lawns!

It also won’t need any extra watering and feeding then, yet  another advantage. Combinations with our different varieties of clovers are always attractive and good for insects.

There is one problem in leaving grasses to flower, which is when you suffer from hayfever! Read more about this on this website.

Some grasses are more troublesome than others: Perennial Ryegrass, Timothy Grass, Cocksfoot (= Orchard) Grass), Bermuda Grass (introduced and not common as yet) and Common Meadow-grass (= Kentucky Blue Grass) are mentioned in that website but probably many more will be troublesome!

How to make a standard lawn more attractive!

In one of my earlier posts we talked about weeds in lawns.

The main grass used in standard, hard-wearing turf is Perennial Rye-Grass. The flowers are not very ornamental, but in lawns they tend to be cut off anyway!

For lawns, various seed-mixes can be used and many grasses are attractive if you allow them to flower (and not suffering from hay fever)! Grasses such as the Meadow-grasses, Timothy & Crested Dog’s-tail. 

 The lawn could slowly be improved adding (or allowing!) ‘weeds’ which suit the locality and soil-type. It is always more difficult to get plants to flourish which don’t belong there! The right plants in the right place!

Yellow rattle, a fashionable plant for creating an attractive meadow does need certain conditions to thrive! Info below from Emorsgate Seeds:

Yellow rattle will not thrive in all grassland. The most suitable sites for yellow rattle will be managed grassland of low to medium fertility that contains a balanced sward of finer grasses not dominated by coarse or vigorous grass (ryegrass, cocksfoot, tall oat-grass or couch). Grassland that is the result of sowing a meadow mixture will have suitable grasses, as will finer turf in gardens and meadows. Yellow rattle often fails to take in ryegrass leys and neglected, over-grown or tussocky grassland.

The turf for bowling greens and other short-cut purposes has more attractive grasses with the delicate flowers of the Fescues and Bents.

Wildlife Uses for Grasses:

Reeds, as well as rushes, sedges and other tall grasses provide safe habitat for especially birds.

Here is a list of wildlife uses for especially lawn grasses:

  • Not cutting grass as short or as frequently allows grasses and other lawn plants such as plantain to seed and provide food for birds.
  • Other lawn plants, such as daisies, provide nectar for hoverflies and bees; in addition, bees will also visit buttercups to collect nectar and pollen.
  • Long grass provides somewhere for invertebrates to shelter and breed and for their eggs or pupae to survive the winter.
  • Some species of moth and butterfly, as well as craneflies and sawflies, find this valuable. These provide a source of protein-rich food for mammals and birds, and are particularly important for the survival of young chicks.
  • When grown against a border or shrub bed, long grass improves conditions beneath the shrubs for invertebrates, which in turn provide food for birds and mammals such as hedgehogs.
  • ‘Neglected’ lawns may contain orchids and other scarce plants. They also contain anthills; these provide ideal conditions for wild annual plants to grow and somewhere for insects to bask.
  • The ants themselves are beneficial predators of less welcome garden insects and are fed on by birds (especially the Green Woodpecker) and other wildlife.
A ‘neglected’ lawn may contain anthills as well as rare flowers!

Grasses are larval food plants for a large number of butterfly and moth species.

  •  Some species like skippers and ringlets prefer tall coarser grass species, others like gatekeepers, meadow browns and marbled whites prefer fine grasses such as bents and fescues. 
  • Other food plants worth noting are birdsfoot trefoil for common blue, garlic mustard/jack-by-the-hedge for orange tip and green-veined white, and common sorrel for small copper.  All these species are easily provided as common components of meadow seed mixtures, or hedgerow/woodland mixtures in the case of garlic mustard. 

Main uses of various Grasses in brief:

With our limited digestive systems we can’t really use the green parts as food.   We can of course eat the grains of our domesticated grasses but the wild grasses are too fiddly to clean.

  • In our temperate regions it is the fact that they can grow in many habitats and are food for our herbivores.
  • They can protect the land from erosion especially on high ground where most of our trees have vanished over centuries, to make way for  sheep and people.
  • Phragmites australis (Common Reed) is important for thatching and grass roots stabilize the sod of sod houses. Reeds are used in water treatment systems, in wetland conservation and land reclamation
  • We can of course eat the grains of our domesticated grasses but the wild grasses are too fiddly to clean.
  • Two  species of Rye Grass are used mainly and extensively as grass for forage: Perennial Rye Grass (Lolium perenne) and Italian rye Grass (Lolium multiflorum).
  • Perennial Rye Grass (Lolium perenne) is the main species used for our lawns as it is particularly hard-wearing as well as in playing fields for sports such as football and rugby.  
  • An interesting article about the use of scented grasses in Norway, especially the genera Anthoxanthum and Hierochloe can be found here:
  • Appropriate species of grass are ideal for stabilizing sand dunes and embankments. (Marram Grass or Ammophila arenaria and Leymus  being the main examples.
Marram Gras abundance to hold the dunes in the Netherlands! 

Ammophila arenaria or Marram Grass

A rhizomatous perennial herb of coastal sand dunes. A. arenaria is an important species in the stabilisation of mobile dunes and blow-outs, and is widely planted as a sand binder. Inland, it is a rare casual, though several attempts have been made in recent years to establish it on inland golf courses.

An attractive blue grass which is also useful to stabilise the dunes (by Kristian Peters in Wikipedia)

Leymus arenarius or Leymus

A rhizomatous perennial herb growing on coastal sand dunes, sometimes also on fine shingle; it is well known as an important species in the stabilisation of mobile dunes and widely planted as a sand binder. It is a rare casual or naturalised garden escape inland.

Leymus is also an attractive ornamental plant! I had used it as the main ornamental grass outside the Foster Building at Rodbaston College in Staffordshire.

Phragmites australis or Common Reed

Common Reed (Phragmites australis) (by Picasa-Wikipedia)

A rhizomatous and stoloniferous herb of swamps and fens, forming large stands in shallow water in ditches, rivers, lakes and ponds; also in brackish swamps and lagoons, and in freshwater seepages on sheltered sea-cliffs. It is frequently planted beside artificial water bodies.

This is probably the most used grass for various reasons below:

Ecological and Wildlife Uses:

The plant has a very vigorous and running rootstock, it is useful for binding the soil along the sides of streams etc.

It is planted for flood control since it stablizes the banks and gradually builds up soil depth, thus raising the level of the bank.

A proper Reed bed (Picture by Mike Poulton)

Common reed is very important (together with other reed-like plants) for wildlife and conservation, particularly in Europe and Asia, where several species of birds are strongly tied to large Phragmites stands. The habitats for reeds in these regions is wetlands and meadows. These include:

Edible Uses:

  • The young shoots can be consumed raw or cooked.
  • The hardened sap from damaged stems can be eaten fresh or toasted.
  • The stems can be dried, ground, sifted, hydrated, and toasted like marshmallows.
  • The seeds can be crushed, mixed with berries and water, and cooked to make a gruel.
  • The roots can be prepared similar to those of bulrushes (Typha latifolia)

Medicinal Uses:

  • the ash of the leaves is applied to foul sores
  • A decoction of the flowers is used in the treatment of cholera and food poisoning
  • The leaves are used in the treatment of bronchitis and cholera
  • The ashes are styptic
  • The stem is antidote, antiemetic, antipyretic and refrigerant

It is taken internally in the treatment of diarrhoea, fevers, vomiting, coughs with thick dark phlegm, lung abscesses, urinary tract infections and food poisoning (especially from sea foods)

Externally, it is mixed with gypsum and used to treat halitosis and toothache

The root is harvested in the autumn and juiced or dried for use in decoctions.

Other Uses:

The common reed has many uses and can provide a large quantity of biomass and this is used in a wide variety of ways as listed below. Annual yields of 40 – 63 tonnes per hectare have been reported.

  • The plant is also converted into alcohol (for use as a fuel), is burnt as a fuel and is made into fertilizer. The plant is rich in pentosans and may be used for the production of furfural
  • The reed can be used also for the preparation of absolute alcohol, feed yeast and lactic acid.
  • The stems are useful in the production of homogeneous boards.
  • They can be processed into a fine fibrous material suitable as a filler in upholstery
  • They are used for thatching roofs, which can last for 100 years.
  • The stems and leaves are used for building dwellings, lattices, fences, arrows by Indians, and for weaving mats, carrying nets, basket making, insulation, fuel, as a cork substitute etc.
  • The stem contains over 50 percent cellulose and is useful in the manufacture of pulps for rayon and paper
  • The fibre from the leaves and stems is used for making paper and string.
  • The flowering stalks yield a fibre suitable for rope making.
  • The leaves are used in basket making and for weaving mats etc.
  • A light green dye is obtained from the flowers.
  • Freshly cut shoots are a good green manure
  • The inflorescences are used as brooms
  • The plant is mixed with mud to make a plaster for walls
  • Pens for writing on parchment were cut and fashioned from the thin stems of this reed

Various Grasses described:

Typical flower spike of Glyceria fluitans (by Kristian Peters in Wikipedia)

 Glyceria fluitans or Floating Sweet-grass

A perennial herb of marshes, swamps and muddy pond margins, and forming floating rafts in shallow water by ditches, rivers, ponds and lakes; tolerant of high levels of disturbance and nutrient-enrichment.

  • Floating Sweet grass or Manna Grass (Glyceria fluitans) is an useful herbage in water meadows. Larger species provide cover for water fowl.                                                                                                                                            
The floating foliage of Glyceria declinata taken in Sutton Park (by Mike Poulton)

Glyceria declinata or Small Sweet-grass

A perennial herb of muddy pond margins, cattle-trampled ditches and marshy fields; also in shallow water by ponds, rivers and canals. Very similar to G. fluitans.

Flowers of Perennial Rye Grass (by Rasbak in Wikipedia)

Lolium perenne or Perennial Rye Grass

L. perenne is predominantly a species of improved lowland pasture, leys, and hay meadows, but is found widely in other habitats, including downland, rush-pasture, inundated grasslands, amenity grassland and road verges; also in open ruderal habitats. It favours fertile, heavy, neutral soils, but is also found on those which are mildly acidic or basic.

Lolium multiflorum or Italian Rye Grass

Flowers of Lolium multiflorum (Picture by Mike Poulton)

An annual or short-lived perennial found in leys, on field margins, in gateways, along farm tracks, on roadsides and rough ground. It often persists for a few years, but rarely becomes naturalised.  A neophyte.

  • Perennial Rye Grass (Lolium perenne) and Italian Rye Grass (Lolium multiflorum) are cultivated grasses used for forage.
  • Perennial Rye Grass is the main species used for our lawns as it is particularly hard-wearing. Therefor it is also used on playing fields for sports such as football and rugby.

(Mainly) Medicinal Grasses:

A. odoratum

Anthoxanthum odoratum or Sweet Vernal Grass

A short-lived perennial herb which occurs in a wide variety of grassland habitats, including old pastures and meadows, hill grassland, heaths, the drier parts of mires and on sand dunes. It is most frequent on acidic soils, and avoids drought-prone or waterlogged sites. Reproduction is by seed.

A. odoratum has a particularly strong scent when dried, and this is due to coumarin, a glycoside, and benzoic acid – it smells like fresh hay with a hint of vanilla. The seed head is bright yellow in color. It prefers sandy loam and acidic conditions (a low pH). As an agricultural grass it has a low yield, but can grow on land too acidic for other grasses.

I always loved the scent of the Sweet Vernal Grass. An interesting article about the use of scented grasses in Norway, especially the genera Anthoxanthum and Hierochloe can be found here.

Uses:

  • A tea is made from the fresh or dried leaves. Has a sweet, pleasant fragrance.
  • The aromatic leaves and dried flowers are used as a strewing herb
  • they are woven into baskets
  • used in pot-pourri

Caution: When used internally, especially from dried plants, it can act to prevent the blood from co-aggulating.

Medicinal Uses:

 Action: Sedative. Anodyne and anti-inflammatory. Improves peripheral circulation (external use).                                    

 Uses: Insomnia, especially when coincident with physical and mental exhaustion. Painful joints, muscle pain & stiffness, chilblains (as baths or compresses). It is said that a tincture made from this grass with spirit of wine is an effective and immediate cure for hay fever.

Detailed drawing from Hierochloe odorata from my book ‘Grasses’ by C.E. Hubbard

Hierochloe odorata or Sweet/Holy Grass

A rhizomatous perennial herb occurring in a range of wetland habitats, including lakeside reed-beds, sedge swamps, Salix carr, river banks and wet meadows; also, in S.W. Scotland, at the base of coastal cliffs where streams emerge and along the upper edge of fringing saltmarshes

The name Hierochloe odorata is from the Greek and Latin. Hierochloe means “holy grass” and odorata means “fragrant”. Much rarer than the Sweet Vernal Grass and can only be found in the northern parts of the B.I.

Uses:

  • The plant is harvested by cutting grass in early to late summer at the desired length. Basketweavers sun-dry cut sweet grass until it is dry and brittle. The brittle form of sweet grass must be soaked in warm water until it becomes pliable. The pliable grass is typically braided into thick threads and then redried for use.
  • Holy grass was strewn before church doors on saints’ days in northern Europe, presumably because of the sweet smell that arose when it was trodden on.
  • It was used in France to flavor candy, tobacco, soft drinks, and perfumes.
  • In Russia, it was used to flavor tea. It is still used in flavored vodka, the most notable example being Polish Żubrówka.
  • It is a sacred grass of the indigenous peoples of Canada and the United States. It is used as a smudge, in herbal medicine and in the production of distilled beverages (e.g., ŻubrówkaWisent). It owes its distinctive sweet scent to the presence of coumarin.

There are only a handful of native grasses which are medicinal according to Julian Barker in The Medicinal Flora of Britain and Northwestern Europe, 2001, he mentiones the following:

Part of an illustration of Lolium temulentum (from Wikipedia)

Lolium temulentum or Darnel

An annual, formerly often a persistent weed of arable land. It is now a rare casual of waste places, originating from grain, bird-seed and wool shoddy. Archaeophyte. It was first recorded in Britain by 1548, was formerly a serious weed of arable land. It had almost disappeared from this habitat before the Second World War. It continues to be recorded as a casual, but less frequently now than in the 1950s and 1960s. It is sometimes toxic to humans and livestock (Cooper & Johnson, 1998).

Action: an analgesic (= herb for relief of mild pain) as well as a hypnotic (= herbs that relieve anxiety and induce normal sleep without unpleasant after-effects).      

Internal uses: powdered dried grains were used for headache, arthritic pain and sciatica. This remedy is probably not used any longer.                                                         

External uses: A lotion made from a decoction (= a medicinal preparation made from a plant) was used for

  • sciatic pain,
  • a poultice for ulcers and sores and
  • the powdered grains are a suitable base as a drawing ointment.

The notorious rhizomes of Elymus repens!

Elytrigia repens or Couch Grass/Twitch

A rhizomatous herb, found in a wide range of fertile, disturbed habitats including waste ground, roadsides, railway banks, arable land and rough grassland; also in coastal areas on sand dunes, shingle, sea walls and the margins of saltmarshes. It is a notorious weed of gardens and agricultural land.

Wildlife Uses:

The foliage is an important forage grass for many grazing mammals. The seeds are eaten by several species of grassland birds, particularly buntings and finches. The caterpillars of some Lepidoptera use it as a foodplant, e.g. the Essex skipper (Thymelicus lineola).

Medicinal Uses:

Action: Diuretic & Demulcent

Uses: Cystitis, urethritis, prostatitis, benign prostatic hypertrophy. Adjunct to the treatment of renal calculi or kidney stones.

In Hedgerow Medicine it is rated highly for all those conditions mentioned above.

Recipe Couch Grass tea: Use 2 heaped teasoonfuls of dried rhizome per mug of boiling water, and let steep for 10 minutes. Strain and drink, three times a day.

The rhizomes have been used in the traditional Austrian medicine against fever, internally as a tea, syrup, or cold maceration in water, or externally applied as a crude drug.    

Other Uses:

The dried rhizomes of couch grass were broken up and used as incense in medieval northern Europe where other resin-based types of incense were unavailable.

Cultivated Grains in our temperate world:

Illustration showing the various wheat types (from The Illustrated Book of Food Plants)

Wheat or Triticum

This is mainly used as a food.

Flour, cooked or soaked can be used as a medium for poultices; wheatgerm oil with its high levels of vitamin E is useful in certain skin disorders and is a valuable healing vehicle for essential oils in Aromatherapy.

There is a good deal of negative advice concerning wheat. Intolerance is by no means uncommon, especially in the presence of fermenting agents. For more about this see here.

Rye, Barley and Oats:

Illustration showing the differences between Rye, Oat and Barley (from The Illustrated Book of Food Plants)

Rye or Secale

Rye grain is used for flour, bread, beer, crispbread, some whiskeys, some vodkas, and animal fodder. It can also be eaten whole, either as boiled rye berries or by being rolled, similar to rolled oats.

Rye contains less gluten than wheat but nonetheless is still not suitable for sufferers from coeliac disease.

Barley or Hordeum

Like wheatrye, and their hybrids and derivatives, barley contains gluten, which makes it an unsuitable grain for consumption by people with gluten-related disorders, such as celiac diseasenon-celiac gluten sensitivity and wheat allergy sufferers, among others. Nevertheless, some wheat allergy patients can tolerate barley or rye.

Oats or Avena

Oat protein is nearly equivalent in quality to soy protein, which World Health Organization research has shown to be equal to meat, milk and egg protein. The protein content of the hull-less oat kernel (groat) ranges from 12 to 24%, the highest among cereals.

Different Uses of Oats in short:

Food and Drink:

  • Rolled or crushed into oatmeal, or ground into fine oat flour. Oatmeal is chiefly eaten as porridge, but may also be used in a variety of baked goods, such as oatcakesoatmeal cookies and oat bread.
  • Oats are also an ingredient in many cold cereals, in particular muesli and granola.
  • Oats are also used for production of milk substitutes (“oat milk“).
  • In Britain, they are sometimes used for brewing beerOatmeal stout is one variety brewed using a percentage of oats for the wort.
  • A cold, sweet drink called avena made of ground oats and milk is a popular refreshment throughout Latin America.
  • Oatmeal caudle, made of ale and oatmeal with spices, was a traditional British drink and a favourite of Oliver Cromwell.

Fodder and Bedding:

  • Oats are also commonly used as feed for horses when extra carbohydrates and the subsequent boost in energy are required. Cattle are also fed oats. Oat forage is commonly used to feed all kinds of ruminants, as pasture, straw, hay or silage.
  • Oat straw is prized by cattle and horse producers as bedding, due to its soft, relatively dust-free, and absorbent nature.

Other Uses:

  • The straw can also be used for making corn dollies.
  • Tied in a muslin bag, oat straw was used to soften bath water.
  • Oat extracts can also be used to soothe skin conditions, and are popular for their emollient properties in cosmetics.

Medicinal Uses:

Oat grass has been used traditionally for medicinal purposes, including to help balance the menstrual cycle, treat dysmenorrhoea and for osteoporosis and urinary tract infections.

An edited account of our cultivated grains from the Medicinal Flora by J. Barker:

Finally this is the section on grasses and in particular the worlds staple crops (slightly edited) found in ‘The Medicinal Flora of Britain and Northwestern Europe written by Julian Barker, Winter Press, West Wickam, Kent, 2001. Thought it was a really interesting account and I hope you find so too.

“Though not the largest in terms of number of species, no other single family has greater ecological dominance: grasses are estimated to make up the major part in over 20% of terrestrial vegetation.

The origin of agriculture stems largely from the gathering of wild grasses and, when allied to the domestication of forage animals, for which pastures may be sown, the stage is set for the almost inevitable dominance of agricultural/pastoral societies over those of an earlier hunter/gatherer mode.

This most ancient meadowland and hill-pasture is not a natural habitat at all; broad-leaved forest is the climax vegetation of the greater part of Northern- Europe, to which it would revert in time should we fail to survive.

No other plant family, then, has anything like the economic importance of the grasses. Most settled societies (civilisations) and some that are semi-nomadic are based upon staple foods that we have come to call cereals after Ceres the Roman goddess of agriculture.

In Western Asia and adjacent areas, Wheat  and Barley were the first crops to have been systematically exploited and were ground for flour at least 12,000 years ago. Early weeds of the first crops were Rye and Oats that, by the first millennium BC were cultivated in their own right. Sorghum, various Millets and Teff are the main cereals of Africa.

Rice was developed in Southeast Asia along with a Foxtail Millet and Proso and  Maize is indigenous only to the Americas and was the staple food of the civilisations of the warmer latitudes. Cultivation is thought to date from 7000 BC but is more difficult to date because of the senseless destruction of ancient artefacts and records motivated by a sense of theocratic superiority and fear. Not only has the world been deprived of one of its great heritage, but also archaeological reconstructions have been more difficult for lack of clues.

The cereals are annual grasses whose specialised fruit is harvested; the ‘grain’ is a structure where the fruit wall is inseparably fused to the seed which is not only starchy but has an unusual protein rich compartment, as well as oil. The Wheats are from species of Triticum.

Rye is in the genus Secale, the cultivated form of which is S. cereal. The plant is hardier than wheat and can thrive on poorer soils than wheat can, but it makes poor bread on its account of low gluten content.

Cultivated Barley may be considered as Hordeum sativum, but other names are also in use.

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