THE BRACTS AND FLOWERS. 35 



In Panicum, according to the Kunthean terminology, the first 

 minute scale is a glume, the second, many times larger, is also a 

 glume, the third, often precisely similar to the second, is not a 

 glume, but a flower, and the fourth, whether similar or more or 

 less dissimilar, is a part of a flower. In some graminese there 

 are additional empty glumes, usually small and often different 

 in form, either immediately below the flowering ones, as in 

 Anthoxanthum and Phalaris, or at the end of the spikelet, as in 

 Melica. These have no pretensions to be flowers at all. In 

 some genera, as in Uyiiola, from three to six of the lower 

 glumes are empty, and precisely similar to each other, and yet 

 we are only allowed to call the two lowest ones glumes, the others 

 are termed flowers. We are not even allowed to define glumes 

 as the two lowest scales of the spikelet ; for that of Leersia, 

 which has two glumes, one empty, the other flowering, is 

 described as having no glumes but two flowers. In KylUnga and 

 Courtoisia, in Cypercaeae, where the fruit is similarly enclosed 

 in two glumes, they are correctly described as such, one empty, 

 the other a flowering one. 



The so-called upper palea is neither homologous nor similar to 

 the so-called lower palea or flowering glume. It is inserted on 

 the axis of the flower, and not on that of the spikelet, as may be 

 seen in cultivated wheat. It is differently shaped, and having 

 instead of one central rib or keel two prominent nerves, it is 

 generally supposed to be a double organ composed of the union 

 of two scales. These two scales are probably the homologues of 

 the two bracteoles of Hypolytrum and Platylepis. It is con- 

 venient to designate them by a special name, for which the gener- 

 ally received term palea is not inappropriate, and commits one to 

 no special theory in regard to it. It appears to me that flowering 

 glume and palea is not more cumbrous than the deceptive one 

 lower palea and upper palea. 



The two or rarely three small scales above the palea and 



