Summary In October, 1967, a symposium entitled “Systematics of the family Gramineae” was held in Kôbe Japan, as a part of the 32nd Annual Meeting of the Botanical Society of Japan. Besides the introductory remarks given by the present author, the following three papers were presented: Systematic significance of underground organs of grass seedlings, by K. Hoshikawa; Amino acid pattern of grass seed and systematics, by H. Taira; Temperature responses and systematics of the Gramineae. by S. Kawanabe. All these three speakers have their own field of research outside of systematics, but they have attempted to combine the results of their investigations with systematics. The present paper aims to discuss the positions of these contributions in modern grass systematics.