THE QUAKE-GRASS 



slender branches to realise that their delicacy is of 

 the greatest utihty. Each little spikelet is 

 suspended, as it were, on a delicate wire, sus- 

 ceptible to the slightest vibration, as its popular 

 name implies. The quake-grass largely inhabits 

 warm regions — even in the northern parts of 

 Scotland it becomes scarce — and its structure 

 consequently must be adapted to vibrate under the 

 gentlest of breezes. A specimen, such as that 

 sho\\Ti in Fig. 88 (Plate 62), serves excellently for 

 drying and preserving for decorative purposes, but 

 it does not reveal the functions of the inflores- 

 cence, simply because the spikelets have not yet 

 opened. In Fig. 89 (Plate 6^) another example 

 is shown, and there the spikelets are seen opening 

 their flowers. 



As I have previously stated, each spikelet 

 consists of about six or eight complete little 

 flowers, all packed closely together ; sometimes 

 the lower scales are barren. From between these 

 scales, or glumes as the botanist terms them, of 

 the fertile flowers some feathery stigmas first 

 protrude, and these receive the pollen blown from 

 older plants whose stamens have arrived at 

 maturity. Later, the three stamens of each flower 

 appear, their relatively large anthers, or pollen 

 sacs, being suspended outside the scales on long 

 delicate filaments, as seen in Fig. 89 (Plate 63), 

 and more in detail in Fig. 90 (Plate 64). 

 When they are fully extended, the anthers burst 

 and shed their innumerable, tiny pollen grains, 

 every delicate breeze moving the anthers on their 

 K 145 



