Other plants grow from the tips of shoots, twigs, and branches, but grasses grows from the bottom up. This allows animals to eat grass without slowing its growth, and people to mow lawns without killing the grass. Grasses are wind pollinated flowering plants. The tiny flowers form at the top of the stalks where the wind can pick up and deliver the pollen. Later the seed heads form at the top of the stalks.
Grasses are monocotyledons, so that when the seeds germinate each one sends up a single leaf.
There are grasslands in many places in the world. The huge grasslands of this biome are found in the interior of continents, on land that is gently rolling or nearly flat. This type of terrain soaks up the rain from summer thunder showers as it falls, so there are not many rivers. In America we use the buffalo and the prairie dog as symbols of our grasslands. The actual fauna is much more diverse, with antelopes, burrowing mammals, snakes, and ground nesting birds.