alt Hacker NewsNit: Trees/Grass are even more of this than Crabs.
The two strategies for plants are to grow super tall to absorb the sun, or super wide (and small) to.... absorb the sun.
Tall needs wood or other 'strong' polymer to support height. Short and wide is perhaps weak from an individual level but far more efficient.
And trees and grass respectively have such genetic diversity that it's clear that none of these damn plants are of the same genetic line.
Nit: grasses are a distinct genetic lineage, the Poaceae family. There are a few other linages outside of Poaceae that have convergently evolved to look like grasses, sedges and rushes, but they all fall in the same clade, Monocots.
Trees, on the other hand, are a growth habit, exhibited by species in a wide variety of plant families, even grasses (e.g palm trees).