134 VIVIPARY [CH. VIII 
moist situations. The flowers, or even entire spikelets, 
grow out into minute leafy buds, with rudimentary roots 
at the base, and fall off like the bulbils of other mono- 
cotyledons, taking root directly in the damp soil. The 
phenomenon must be looked upon as a case of apogamy, 
since the development of sexual organs is entirely passed 
over; the parts which would normally have become ovary 
and stamens being transformed into leaves. In some 
species or varieties—e.g. Poa alpina, Festuca ovina—this 
viviparous condition may coexist with normal flowers and 
spikelets; in others—e.g. Poa lawxa, var. stricta—only the 
viviparous state occurs. 
In the following arrangement the student should note 
that the terms “Seed” and “Fruit” are used in the 
ordinary sense of the farmer and seedsman: by the 
former is meant the “seed” as it comes in samples into 
the market, when the true fruit or grain (Caryopsvs) 1s 
almost invariably invested by adherent “chaff ”—e. 
pales or glumes or both. When the word Caryopsis is 
employed, I mean it strictly in the botanical sense ex- 
plained above. In Hordeum, for example, we never see 
the true fruit, the grain consisting of the caryopsis with 
palez so closely adherent to it, that we are apt to take 
them as part of the grain itself. The true seed, in the 
strict botanical sense, is never seen as a naturally separate 
organ in our native grasses; and, as already explained, 
only very few exotic grasses ever shed 1t—e.g. Sporobolus. 
