302 The Story of a Grass [May 17, 



ill wild barley. These arrangements are generally lacking in culti- 

 vated cereals, but present in native races so far as they are known ; 

 compare, for instance, wild and cultivated barley. The bracts or 

 glumes are especially important as a means for distributing the fruit : 

 being light and membranous they act as wings. Long hairs borne 

 on the glumes or parts of the axis may act as aids to wind-carriage, 

 as in the Reed and Sugar-cane. In other cases the awn of the 

 glume answers the same purpose ; this is especially well seen in the 

 feathery awns of Stipa, which includes several steppe-grasses, where 

 the point of the awn also forms a mechanism for fixing the seed in 

 the ground. 



[A. B. R.] 



