THE TRUE GRASSES. 



(GRAMINEvE.*) 



PART I. 



STRUCTURE, MORPHOLOGY, AND PHYSIOLOGY. 



Special Characters of the Order. — Flowers hermaphrodite, 



rarely unisexual, perianth none, in the axils of enveloping chaff-like 

 scales or bracts (dowering glumes), solitary or united into many- 

 flowered spikelets ; one bract (palea) usually two-keeled and opposite 

 the flowering glume ; one very small scale (anterior lodicule) split to 

 the base and usually herbaceous, above the flowering glume; rarely 

 with another entire scale (posterior lodicule) above the palea; oc- 

 casionally with the palea only, or even without that ; very rarely 

 truly terminal. 



Stamens usually in a whorl of three (rarely two) members, some- 

 times in two alternating whorls ; the number of stamens in a whorl 

 is very rarely either much increased, or reduced by abortion to one. 

 Carpel single, standing opposite the palea. Ovary one-celled, 

 usually with two lateral, rarely with three or one, styles. Ovule 

 solitary, slightly campylotropous, without a funiculus and with the 

 micropyle turned downwards. Fruit usually a caryopsis rich in 

 amylaceous matter. The embryo, covered only by the pericarp, lies 

 outside of the albumen at the front and base of it. Embryo usually 

 small and straight with a shield-shaped cotyledon, in the anterior 

 cavity or furrow of which lies the plumule, having several rudimen- 

 tary leaves, and the radicle with its surrounding tissues. 



* Important Literature: — R. Brown, General Remarks, etc., in 

 Vermischte Scliriften, I. p. 107. — Palisot de Beauvois, Essai d'une Noti- 

 velle Agrostograpliie, Paris, 1812. — Kunth, Revision des Graminees, Paris, 

 1829, and Agrostographia sive Enum. Graminum, Stuttgart, 1833. — 

 Roper, Beitriige z. Flora Mecklenburgs, 2 parts, Rostock, 1844. — Payer, 

 Traite d" Organogenie de la Fleur, p. 701, Paris, 1857. — Doll, Flora d. 

 Grossherz. Baden, and in Martius et Eichler, Flora Brasiliensis, vol. II. 

 parts II. and III. — Eichler, Bliithendiagramme, I. 199. — Hackel, Unter- 

 sucliungen liber die Lodiculm der Grdser, in Engler's Bot. Jahrb. , I. 

 336. — Bentham in Journ. Linn. Society, XIX. p. 14, and in Bentham 

 and Hooker's Genera Plantarum, III. p. 1074. 



