Broadleaf Herbs & Grasses

Broadleaf Herbs

• Culinary herbs lend their leaves, flowers or seeds to flavoring food. The dominant mint family includes classic broadleaf herbs -- mint itself as well as sage, thyme, basil and oregano -- with their leaves shaped like long shields. Parsley and cilantro, part of the family Umbelliferae, also have broad leaves, though smaller than most of the mints.

Alliums and Others

• Chives and green onions, members of the Allium family along with onions, leek and garlic, are herbs that lack broad leaves. They are monocots, which send out a single initial leaf called a cotyledon, and in this aspect resemble the grass family, which includes corn, millet, turfgrasses, ryegrasses and sorghum. Other herbs such as rosemary, though part of the mint family, have fragrant needlelike leaves although they are technically a dicot, with two cotyledons. Tarragon, a member of the aster or daisy family, also has needlelike leaves, while dill, another Umbelliferae representative, has narrow feathery leaves.

Narrow Leaf-Blade Grasses

• By definition, grasses are plants with relatively narrow leaves. True grasses have round or flat stems, notes the University of Wisconsin Extension, with leaves along the entire length, unlike sedges with triangular stems and rushes with round stems but leaves only at the base. Kentucky bluegrass has a narrow leaf blade at less than 1/8 inch wide, while pasture grasses such as quackgrass and creeping foxtail have medium-sized leaf blades of around ¼ inch wide.

Broad Leaf-Blade Grasses

• While not as wide as a broadleaf weed such as a dandelion, even a ½-inch blade is enough to classify grasses such as smooth bromegrass and reed canarygrass as wide-leaf types. The leaves of smooth bromegrass display a slight M-shaped constriction halfway between the stem and the tip. Reed canarygrass also features flat, wide leaves arising from the base of the plant, with a constriction looking like a slightly pinched and dimpled area of leaf more than 2 inches from the tip. Other wide-bladed grasses include orchard grass, nutsedge and couch grass.