.SPIKELETS. | | 23 
Female Spikelets—The female spikelets are as a rule more elongated. than tlie. male 
ones and though the flowers are biíarious they are more remotely disposed, "dee! 
The female spikelets also have their axis constantly clothed with tubular or 
slightly infundibuliform spathels but these are longer and less distinctly infundibuliform 
than those of the male spikelets and are not infrequently represented by membranous 
rings round the axis of the spikelets with which in their lower part they are 
organically fused (Prate I, figs. 8-124, and Prate II, figs. 1 and 3k). It is therefore 
often difficult to distinguish externally the point where the spathels are differentiated 
from the axis. | 
In some cases the spathels are much reduced in size, are devoid of any tubular 
portion and resemble bracts. The morphological structure of the female spikelets does 
not differ essentially from that of the’ male, but -in the female the appendicular organs 
together with the flowers which arise from the axil of or above each spathe must be 
considered in their entirety as a secondary much contracted spikelet. This mode of 
interpreting the female spikelets of Calami is in accord with the general plan of 
division of the spadices, and assumes that it is supra-decompound as is almost 
universally the case with the male spadices. According to this interpretation the female 
spikelets would also have been supra-decompound if the small contracted spikelet 
existing at each spathel had undergone further development. 
The flowers of the female spikelets are inserted, like those of the male ones, in 
‘or @ little above the axils of their respective spathels, but in the female spikelets 
the female flower has two involucres in place of one. And from the descriptive 
point of view it is most important to fix the nomenclature of these two involueres. 
The organ which remains inside or a little above each spathel and which is 
immediately in contact with the axis of the spikelet has been termed by me an 
"involuerophorum?; it corresponds with the “ spathellula" of Martius and with the 
“bract ” or “ bracteole ” of Griffith. 
I have not considered it advisable to retain the name of spathellule for the 
involuerophore, because this does not correspond morphologically to what has been 
termed the spathellule in the male spikelets and because it appears to me to be an 
organ of axial rather than of appendicular structure. The name spathellule implies a 
morphological agreement with the spathel to which it should bear the same relation- 
ship as the spathel does to the spathe or as a secondary spathe does to a primary 
one. As a matter of fact, however, the “involucrophore” appears to represent the 
shortened or contracted axis of a small spikelet, provided with its spathel and bearing 
| besides its appendicular organ which is the involucre. This structure is very evident 
in those species that have the spikelets inserted at the base of their own spathe, as 
In €. Burckianus, C. Zollingerii, C. Grifithianus, etc., when the involucrophore both 
emerges from the base of its own spathel and is more or less pedicellate ( PLATE 
II, figs. 6-9a). | ! 
The precise place of insertion of the involucrophore is not. always at the base 
of its spathel, but is much more frequently just at its mouth or a little above or 
below the mouth. When the involuerophore is inserted outside its own  spathel, it 
generally seems attached to the axis of the spikelet; but in fact it adheres laterally 
^to the base of the spathel above that in the axil of which it ought theoretically to have 
* 
