CHAPTER VIL. 
GRASSES IN FLOWER. 
WHEN the flowering shoot of a grass pushes up into 
the light and air from the enveloping leaves, it forms a 
more or less branched collection of flowers known as the 
Inflorescence, and in all our grasses this inflorescence 
consists of a principal stalk, haulm or culm, on which 
shorter stalks—branched or not—are arranged. The 
mode of branching is usually such that the youngest 
branches are nearest the top, and the oldest nearest the 
bottom. It is evident at once, on comparing the Moor 
Mat-grass (Nardus), Vernal-grass (A nthoxanthum), Cock’s- 
foot (Dactylis), Meadow-grass (Poa) that considerable 
differences exist as to the extent of this primary 
branching of the inflorescence. 
In Nardus (Fig. 2) we find a number of long cylin- 
drical-tapering bud-like structures each seated on one 
side of the principal stem, and one over the other: in the 
Vernal-grass and Cock’s-foot we find tufts of such bud-like 
structures closely crowded round the upper end of the 
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