Growing our knowledge of grasses

Grasses feed the world

Many people do not realise that ‘grasses’ are not just the ubiquitous little plants we find in our gardens and on our lawns. Grasses are actually one of the most diverse and useful of all plant groups, with almost 12,000 species known across the world. The grass family (known as Poaceae) feeds the world: with wheat, rice, maize, sorghum and sugar cane all belonging to Poaceae. The grass family also covers over 25% of the world’s land surface with natural grasslands and savannas.

130 years of grass classification at Kew

Scientists at Kew have specialised in the study of grasses for 130 years, handling specimens from across the world. Using their knowledge of the small and complex reproductive parts, Kew scientists have constructed a grass classification system which is relied upon throughout the world. Kew grass specimens have been consistently identified to a high standard, and Kew’s herbarium collection serves as a reference library of grass diversity. 

Kew’s grass celebrity Derek Clayton turns 90

The most famous modern grass taxonomist at Kew is Derek Clayton. He assembled data on all grasses of the world and published the reference book Genera Graminum in 1986. This compendium of information allowed the study of grass diversity to take a leap forwards, and paved the way for later computerised systems. Despite the success of the book, Derek realised that a database would be more suitable, providing a more flexible means of storing and presenting information in the longer term. He built the first comprehensive taxonomic database, called GrassBase, which is now an active repository for species descriptions and associated data (Vorontsova et al 2015; Clayton 2016). 

On 18–19 July 2016 members of the worldwide community of scientists studying grasses gathered at The Linnean Society of London to congratulate Derek on his 90th birthday, thank him for his amazing work, discuss future research directions, and the continued development of GrassBase. Eighty delegates attended and listened to 29 presentations by scientists from Australia, China, France, Madagascar, Russia, South Africa, Switzerland, UK, and the USA (Linnean Society of London, 2016).

Growing forward

Scientific research moves ahead through a myriad of independent research projects, advised by the globally interconnected community of scientists. This meeting provided a platform to showcase all of the multifaceted work being carried out on so many different aspects of the grass family. All our research programmes have been given a boost of inspiration by everything we learned. We will continue to collaborate and build on Derek’s work to understand grasses better, to help produce better crops and to build our understanding on managing the world’s ecosystems.