Our association with plants predates our human condition. Although the appreciation of plants by humans is probably innate, the ability to exploit plants so successfully is in large part a result of humankinds capacity to transmit knowledge culturally.

Of all the various plant groups - algae, mosses, ferns, gymnosperms and flowering plants - Flowering plants have furnished us with nearly all of the species we use for food and clothing and in countless other ways. Since the flowering plants, or angiosperms, comprise nearly two-thirds of all species of plants and are the dominant vegetation on the earth's land surface, their great use perhaps should not come as a surprise; but their significance does not derive as much from their numbers as from the fact that they are the only plants that produce fruits and seeds. Of the 250,000 or more species of known flowering plants, it has been estimated that there are about 30,000 edible plant species, however only 3000 or so have historically been used to any extent by humans for food. Of these about 200 have become more or less domesticated, and entered into modern world commerce.

This trend has led to our present situation, in which only about 20 species, all highly modified by humans, are of major economic importance. Only about dozen species or so are the primary foods that stand between us and starvation. The grasses are foremost in this regard (Figure 1). Of the 300 or so families of flowering plants, none is of greater importance to us than the grass family, known scientifically as the family Gramineae (Heiser, C. B., 1973. Seed to Civilization: the Story of Food, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts).

Related Articles
Food from Fungi. Frank A. Gilbert and Radcliffe F. Robinson. Economic Botany. Volume 11. pp. 126-145.
Bryophytes as Economic Plants. John W. Thieret. Economic Botany. Volume 10. pp. 75-91.
Economic Uses of Lichens. George A. Llano. Economic Botany. Volume 2. pp. 15-45.

FAO Agriculutral Crop Statistics