496 



ANGIOSPERMS 



over the earth. The many valuable plants, such as Corn, 

 Wheat, Oats, Barley, Rye, Rice, Millet, Sugar Cane, Sorghum, 



Blue-Grass, Timothy, and 

 others that are included, make 

 the Grass family the most im- 

 portant family of Angiosperms. 

 Except the Bamboos, which 

 are shrubs or trees, the Grasses 

 are herbaceous. Some have 

 unisexual (Fig. 14, 16), while 

 others have bisexual flowers 

 (Fig. 18), and the flowers are 

 FIG. 449. The flowers of the com- commonly arranged in spikes 

 mon Cat-tail. At the lef t, a staminate O r panicles. Their chief char- 



flower; at the right, a pistillate flower. 



acteristics are that their essen- 



tial reproductive organs are enclosed in bracts and that they 

 have a nut-like fruit called a grain or cariopsis. 



Fia. 450. Sugar Cane. After Lecomte. 



Besides the grains upon which mankind depends so much for 

 food and the Sugar Cane (Fig. 450), which is grown extensively 



