FAMILY POACEAE (GRASS FAMILY)

• Cereals and Grasses (25% of vegetation)• 600 genera and 8,500 species• Wheat (Triticum vulgare)• Rice (Oryza sativa)• Barley (Hordeum vulgare)• Oat (Avena sativa)• Millet (Pennisetum americanum)• Summer grass (Cynadon dactylon)• Winter grass (Poa annua)

Ornithopoda Varigata Chasmanthium latifolium

ORNAMENTAL GRASSES

Meadow Grass Sisyrinchium mucronatum

• Monocots• No Secondary Growth• Herbaceous plants• Parallel Venation• Base of each leaf forms a sheath• Stems (culms) hollow, unbranched• Both annual and perennial species occur

• Source of Gluten (gliadin and glutelin)• Endosperm of grasses• Elasticity of dough• Due to fermentation by yeast, CO2 trapped• Leavened Bread• High gluten in wheat and rye responsible for

Leavened bread

FLOWER

• Small, inconspicuous and incomplete• Sepals and petals replaced with lodicules• Three stamens and one carpel• Ovary single but two styles and stigmas• Stigma enlarged and feathery • Stamen pendant• Wind-pollination

GRASS FLOWER

WHEAT

• Widely cultivated cereal• Wheat-producing countries Ukraine, U.S, Canada, China, India, Argentina, France, South Africa• Modern Cultivars durum, bread wheat• Durum wheat (Triticum durum) grown in

Northern United States, Canada, Europe

Durum wheat

• T.durum high gluten content and yields semolina flour (used as spaghetti, macaroni, and noodles)

• Triticum aestivum (Bread wheat) makes 90% of world production

• Used in breakfast, bread, pastries• New cultivars constantly being developed

• Vitamin A, • B12, • C• iodine missing

• Refined wheat flour mixed with wheat

• Riboflavin• Niacin• Thiamin

CORN• Zea mays (maize) summer annual crop• Corn in U.S• In England Corn refers to wheat• In Scotland corn refers to oat• Amylose and Amylopectin• Large chromosome (Barbara McClintok)• Popcorn, Flint, Flour, Dent, Sweet, Waxy

and Pod

• Sweet corn contains high concentration of sugar instead of starch

• Waxy corn relatively new, appeared in China• introduced into U.S (glossy, wax-like

appearance)• Source of carbohydrate, fats and proteins• Corn starch, corn oil, corn syrup all processed

from corn• Used as biofuel• Color depends upon pigmentation of endosperm,

aleurone layer and pericarp)

Waxy Corn (Amylopectin inEndosperm)

Pop Corn (Hard kernels with hard starch (more amylose) surrounding a core of soft starch and endosperms with water

Dent Corn (Successful with hard and soft starch, hard starch along sides and soft to top and centre

Flint Corn (Hard starch in outer part of kernel)

Sweet Corn (High concentration of sugar instead of starch in cells of endosperm)

Flour Corn

Cross section Maize stem

RICE

• Only crop grown extensively for human• More than 2 billion people in Asia rely on rice as dietary staple• Oryza sativa main cultivated rice• 20 species in this genus known• Cultivated in flooded fields, and paddies• Azolla weed useful for rice (symbiosis)