490 GRAMINACEAE. 
occasionally reduced to 2 or 1, or in some genera 6; anthers versatile, 
ell Ovary 1-celled, with 1 suspended ovule. Style 2- or 3-lobed, 
or more frequently divided to the base into 2 or 3 more or less feathery 
styles. Fruit seed-like, called a grain or caryopsis, free or adhering to 
the persistent palea, or enclosed in the hardened palea and flowering 
um 
_ opening into 2 valves. Embryo small, at the base of a mealy albumen. — 
Herbaceous or lignescent plants with stems usually hollow, except at the 
nodes. Leaves alternate, entire, elongate, parallel-veined, sheathing the 
stem at their bases, but the sheaths split open on the side opposite the 
7 
appendage called the ligula. Spikelets arranged in terminal spikes 
racemes or panicles. 
The Grasses constitute one of the largest Orders, abundantly diffused over every part 
of the globe. 
The following dichotomous key has been drawn up with reference to Hawaiian species 
nly. 
Spikelets diclinous, the sexes in distinct inflorescences. 14. Zea. 
aver hermaphrodite, or, if diclinous, the sexes in the 
% sthbedseinns: 
sheaeupati 6; palea 3-neé 15. Oryza. 
gsr mens 6; palea 2- nerd; -spikelet several: flowered ; peri- 
arp thin and adhere arborescen 35. Bambusa. 
sisi 6; ann ear ia 1- flowered ; pericarp 
crustaceous, loose; arbores : 36. Schizostachyum. 
amens 3, bate alea rved : 
Spikelet with 1 fertile floret, ate prvoene a second male 
or rudimentary floret below or above it: 
Spikelets enclosed in a multifid aculeate Sy 6. Cenchrus. 
Spikelets immersed in the excavations a broad 
flattened rhachis 7. Stenotaphrum. 
Spikelets free, su le alon: ng one side of the rays ‘of 
a simple, often digitate panicle, or of a simple spike 
an ea enclosing grain, 
as eo patel than the sterile outer gl 
Glum: ve; casey: oret term 
aig ae glumes i : a 1, Paspalum 
2. Panicum, “no. 1. 
Empty outer glumes 3, 80g the uppermost of them 
supplied with a palea 
Lowest glume awnless 2. Panicum, nos. 2 & 2. 
Both lower glumes awned, ‘the awn ‘of the 
first lon; 3. Oplismenus. 
piesa paiggeah an an imperfect floret above the fertile 
€, eee longed : 
r the 
k of tl 25. Cynodon. 
Axis bearing one or more rudimentary glumes 
above the fioret ‘ 26. Chloris. 
Fertile glume thin and transparen ‘: generally sma all 
and with a twisted and — tad spikelets in 
floret and iene 10. Spodiopogon. 
. 
