86 STRUCTURE OF FLOWER [CH. 
other pairs of more or less boat-shaped scales, smaller and 
more delicate than the glumes, and known as the pales 
(palec), while a third pair of still smaller pales is fixed to 
the end of the axis. In each case one smaller and more 
delicate anner palea is hinged just inside its more obvious 
outer palea. In the closed condition of the spikelet each 
of the three pairs of pales is shut together, and pressed 
close to the axis, and the pair of glumes shut in the 
whole. 
On opening each of the lower pairs of pales we find a 
flower inside; but the terminal pair usually contain only 
the barren end of the axis. Hence the latter is barren 
and the former are fertile. 
Each fertile flower is found on careful dissection to 
consist of a small swollen Ovary, or young grain, covered 
with silky hairs and with a couple of delicate plumes (the 
Stigma) at its apex, and three long and slender Stamens ; 
while the magnifying glass will show two tiny scales at 
the base—the Lodicules. All our ordimary grasses have 
their flowers thus constructed—a pair of lodicules, three 
dangling stamens and an ovary with a feathery two- 
plumed stigma: each such flower is also enclosed in its 
pair of pales, and the several pairs of pales of each 
spikelet, with their contents, are enclosed in the pair of 
glumes (Figs. 29-—32). 
Returning now to the inflorescence. It is clear that 
we have to distinguish between the entire branched total 
Inflorescence, and the Spikelets or partial inflorescences 
of which it is composed. In Botany it is agreed to call 
any inflorescence consisting of a stalk or axis on which 
