"2 GRAMl'SBM. 



olimbing, often creeping and rooting at the base ; some of the Bnm- 

 iuscB shrubby or ahnost arborescent. Stems, culms, simple or 

 branched, usually hollow between the nodes. Leaves alternate, 

 distichous; the sheaths while growing often split open opposite 

 the base of the blade and often terminate within the blade in a 

 scarious or ciliate appendage, the ligule ; blade entire, parallel- 

 veined, sometimes with small netted veins, usually long and nar- 

 row ; a 2-keeled membranous propliyllum stands between each 

 branch and the main axis. 



There are in the Gramine* probably about 3500 species, the 

 family ranking fifth in size among flowering plants, and among 

 monocotyledons is only exceeded by the Orchidaceffi. The family 

 is allied most nearly to the Cyperaceas. 



IMPORTANT WOEKS ON GRAMINE^.* 



*'A considerable proportion of Gramines are almost cosmo- 

 politan in their geographical distribution within or without the 

 tropics, often covering the ground with innumerable individuals. 

 Grasses are easily dried, abound in herbaria in specimens readily 

 exhibiting their most essential characters ; and every local botanist 

 considers himself perfectly competent to describe as new species or 

 genera suggested only by comparison with the few forms known to 

 him from the same limited locality. The consequence is that the 

 numlier of bad species and genera of Graminese with which science 

 has been overwhelmed is truly appalling. 



"The paramount importance of the order in an econominal 

 point of view has called forth innumerable treatises, memoirs, and 

 essays on cereals, on forage and other cultivated grasses, on mead- 

 ows and pastures, on ornamental grasses, on the physiology and 

 properties of the order. 



" In a systematic point of view, the great mistake of Linnaeus 

 and the earlier systematists was the attempt to regard the whole 

 spikelet as a single flower, with a calyx and coralla to be compared 



* Notes on Gramineae, by Ueorge Beutham, F.R.S., Journ, Liiin. See, xix. 



p. 18 abstract. 



