In the preceding pages, attention has been concentrated on those Gramineae whose seeds are used by man for food. In this chapter we must turn to those from whose vegetative shoots he takes toll, indirectly or directly. The significance of grass in the life of man long ago received symbolic recognition. Pliny tells us that in Rome no Coronets were “better esteemed…to give testimonie of honour and reward for some notable service performed for the Commonweale, than those which were made simply of greene grasse”. He also refers to an ancient tradition that the greatest sign “of yeelding to the mercie of the enemie, was this, If the vanquished did take up grasse, and tender it unto the conqueror: for this served as a confession and protestation, That they rendered up all their interrest which they might challenge in the earth (the mother that bred and fed them)”. Grass means as much to man today as it did in antiquity, but town life tends to dull his consciousness of the part it plays in his existence. This, however, becomes sufficiently clear when we turn to statistics and learn that in 1932 the number of arable acres in England and Wales was less than 10 millions, while the acreage of pasture and rough grazing exceeded 21 millions.

Considering the immemorial antiquity of cereal culture, it might have been expected that the culture of chosen species of grass would also date back to the remote past. We do not, however, find evidence of it.