Grass

My newly seeded lawn has started to shoot, albeit patchy in some parts, as a result of the warmer weather and plenty of watering.
Got me thinking about grass in horticultural terms and how come you can mow it and it keeps growing.
Maybe I should have paid more attention in the plant physiology lectures at school.
Anyway, grasses are monocots ie. their seeds contain a single (mono-) embryonic leaf known as a cotyledon. There are approximately 60,000 species of monocots.
This makes them distinct from the other class of plants, dicots whose seed has two embryonic leaves or cotyledons. There are about 175,000 known species of dicots encompassing most common garden plants, shrubs and trees, and broad-leafed flowering plants.

So how come you can mow grass and it keeps growing when other plants don’t?
A plant produces new cells in a place called the meristem. The production of new cells together with the enlargement (division) of these new cells is the source of growth in a plant.
The meristem of many monocots is in the "crown" of the plant which is right at soil level.
The meristem of dicots is at the end of each shoot.
Therefore if you "mow" the dicot, you cut off the source of growth and new growing points must emerge from buds along the stem. Dormant buds contain inactive meristems which begin growth when the buds above it are removed.
This generally calls for strategic pruning.

With monocots, since the growing point is at ground level, you can cut the tips of the leaves and the meristem just continues producing new cells which enlarge and push the leaf blade up from the bottom.
Therefore, you can mow the monocot grass but not a dicot, if you want the latter to keep growing, that is.