A85 
with the subfending glume forming the floret, (some of the parts fre- 
quently wanting and the number of stamens sometimes increased to 6): 
Horal glume herbaceous, membranaceous or coriaceous, convex or 
carinate, with an odd number of nerves, one of them being the mid- 
nerve, and one or more often excurrent in awns; palet facing the floral 
glume, usually thinner and smaller, 2-nerved or 2-keeled; lodicules 
2 or 5 or wanting, generally microscopic, scale-like; stamens hypogy- 
nous, one opposite the floral glume and two opposite the palet when 
of the usual number; filaments threadlike; anthers 2-celled, versatile 
or sometimes basifixed; styles 1 or 2 or more, stigmas 2, linear, plu- 
nose, ovary L-celled, l-ovuled, becoming a seed-like grain free or adnate 
to the palet; embryo small, lateral at the base of the starchy albumen.— 
Herbs, annual or perennial: roots fibrous: stems (culms) terete or 
compressed, usually hollow between the closed nodes: leaves alter- 
nately 2-ranked; sheaths convolute about the culm, usually split oppo- 
site the blade, projecting more or less above the base of the blade in 
a scarious appendage (ligule); blade linear or lanceolate, parallel- 
veined.—A large family second only to Composite in the number of 
species in Texas. The most important order of plants in the vegeta- 
ble kingdom in the number and value of food-producing species, 
Series I. PANICACE4. Spikelets with one perfect terminal floret 
and with or without a staminate or rudimentary lateral floret; some- 
times all the spikelets unisexual, with no appreciable internode between 
the florets; articulated below the lower glume, the spikelet falling entire. 
A. Spikelets dorsally compressed or terete, 
a. Floral glumes and palets hyaline; empty glumes thicker, the lower one largest, 
embracing the second glume and floret with its edges: spikelets generally in 
racemes or spikes with articulate axes. 
Tribe I. Spikelets unisexual in separate inflorescences or on different parts of the 
same inflorescence, awnless.—MAYADEZ. 
1. Tripsacum. Pistillate and staminate spikelets in the same inflorescence, the 
axis of the former articulated between each spikelet. 
Tribe II. Spikelets all perfect or staminate and perfect, and then so arranged in 
twos or threes that a pertect floret stands with one or two staminate or imperfect 
tlorets.— ANDROPOGONE®. 
* Spikelets awnless in spike-like racemes in alternate notches in the thickened rachis, 
one sessile and perfect, the other pedicelled and staminate or neutral. 
+ Rachis hairy: spikelets not deeply embedded. 
2. Blionurus. Spikelets flat on the back. 
+ + Rachis glabrous: spikelets deeply embedded, 
3. Rottbeellia. Sessile spikelets flat or convex. 
4, Manisurus. Sessile spikelets small and globular, pitted. 
* * Spikelets in spikes or loose racemes on the slender axis, the perfect ones awned, 
the others awuless, 
11874—No,. 3——10 
