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4 days ago · Overview. Poaceae. Quick Reference. The grass family, known formerly as Gramineae; a very large and important family of monocotyledons, most of which are annual or perennial herbs, but a few genera of which (e.g. the bamboos) are woody. From an ecological viewpoint, it is the most successful family of flowering plants.
Within the order, by far the most important family economically is the family of grasses (Poaceae, syn. Gramineae), which includes barley, maize, millet, rice, and wheat. It is also the largest family in the order, far outnumbering the other families: Poaceae: 12,070 species; Cyperaceae: 5,500 species; Bromeliaceae: 3,170 species
Distribution and abundance. There are about 10,000 grass species, most of them confined to a single continent. An exception, the cosmopolitan species Phragmites australis, the giant reed grass, has the widest geographic range of any flowering plant.
