The front lawn, where children play. The city park. Baseball fields, football fields, soccer fields. Golf courses. Cemeteries, too. They are familiar environments that seem to epitomize the value of enjoying nature. Celebrated fondly in song as the “green, green grass of home.” The aesthetic of lawns is deeply embedded in the American psyche (Jenkins, 1994). And for some municipalities and individuals, maintaining their quality seems sacrosanct (Pollan, 1989; Steinberg, 2006, pp. 179–200).

However, approaching grass from a biological perspective might inform our values in different ways. A lawn is an ecosystem. And turf is intensively managed—perhaps not always in ways that express other widely shared environmental values. Here, I address the popular belief about lawns—this month’s Sacred Bovine—that they are environmentally friendly, even “green.”

Grassy areas are so common as to nearly escape notice. One may easily forget that grass is living. And that...

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