248 Plants and their Ways in South Africa 



panicle, and the pistillate flowers below. In Maize the stigma is neither 

 branched nor feathery nor is the stem hollow. When the seed is shed, 



Fig. 225.— I. Expanded spikelet of the Oat, with a fertile and barren 

 flower, FS ; G, glumes ; Pe, outer pale, with awn, A ; Pi, inner pale ; within 

 are the feathery stigmas. II. Fertile flower with outer pale removed. (From 

 Thom^ and Bennett's "Structural and Physiological Botany".) 



the spikelets in some genera break off just above the empty glumes, some- 

 times below them. 



Tricholaena is a beautiful grass with soft silky glumes. 

 In Tricholcena rosea, Nees, the glumes are rose-coloured. 



Phragmites communis, Trim., is a common reed used for 

 thatching. 



Coix lachryma is a curious but pretty grass. The pistil- 

 late flowers are enclosed in a hard bony involucre ; the flowers 

 containing stamens are borne on a stalk up through an open- 

 ing in the top of this bead-like involucre. The popular name 

 of this grass is " Job's Tears ". 



Order Restiace^e. 



This order is frequently confused with the grasses, 

 Qomparison of the two will show how they differ, 



