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"...being predictive, being right about the future, is not the point of any given story or novel. The point is about exploring as wide a range of possibilities as possible."
- Peter Watts

Cannibal Grass  
  Genetically engineered grass that acts as a defense layer for a home.  

This was cannibal grass. Once the householder had sprayed it with an "ID acceptor" pheromone, the whole family and its pets lay on the grass long enough for it to "learn" their odors. Reprogramming the it required simultaneous exposure to both the pheromone and one or more of the original family members. Lacking that, whenever strange people or animals stepped onto the tinted grass nearest the house, its sharp blades would penetrate shoes, clothes, and skin, inject a paralytic agent, and sip away the victim's blood... the resident family could, if it wished, rescue wandering neighborhood children, birds and dogs. They could also deliver would-be burglars, peeping toms and other undesirables to the police...
Technovelgy from Sparrowhawk, by Thomas A. Easton.
Published by Ace Books in 1990
Additional resources -

Frank Herbert wrote about sheets of mobile, predatory leaf.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Sparrowhawk
  More Ideas and Technology by Thomas A. Easton
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