Thursday, July 31, 2008

Grass Preamble

Source: wiki

Zoo will take a hiatus this week thus Grass decided to give an introduction on itself instead.

Grass, the common word to describe monocotyledonous green plants. It came about in the early 15th century from the Old English græs, derived from the same root as “grow”.

Grass-like plants are the most versatile, existing for millions of years ago as food for the dinosaurs. Grasses adapted all kinds of conditions (rainforests, desserts, mountain steppes etc) and can be found almost anywhere in the world.

Most importantly, grasses are important to humans. They are food for the domesticated animals and humans as well as for aesthetic and sports uses. Recently there have been a lot of debates on the pros of being vegetarians. The argument is on the amount of grasses needed to be animal fodder could feed more human beings should these humans be vegetarians. This is because the animals feeding on the same amount of grasses might not be sufficient as food for the same amount of human beings. Guess is partly why the current economic problem emphasis on shortages e.g. food shortages.

Lastly, something interesting in wiki caught the author’s attention.

Grass plays a central role in two important science fiction catastrophe novels from the 1940s and 1950s, Ward Moore's Greener Than You Think, in which the world is slowly taken over by unstoppable Bermuda Grass, John Christopher's The Death of Grass, in which a plague that kills off all forms of grass threatens the survival of the human species.
Source: wiki


While reading this, I suddenly remember an old post where I wrote about Grass waging a war... Maybe I have the making of a science fiction writer after all.. hahahha

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