248 



PLANT FAMILIES : MONOCOTYLEDONS. 



may have recourse to material preserved in alcohol for the 

 dissection of the flower. The plants grow usually in stools; 

 the stem is cylindrical, and marked by distinct nodes as in the 

 corn plant. The leaves possess a sheath and blade. The 

 flowers form a loose head of a type known as a panicle. Each 

 little cluster as shown in fig. 211 is a spikelet, and consists 

 usually here of one or two fertile flowers below and one or two 

 undeveloped flowers above. We see that there are several 

 series of overlapping scales. The two lower ones are 

 " glumes/' and because they bear no flower in their axils are 

 empty glumes. Within these empty glumes and a little higher 

 on the axis of the spike is seen a boat-shaped body, formed of 

 a scale, the margins of which are folded around the flowers 

 within, and the edges inrolled in a peculiar manner when 

 mature. From the back of this glume is borne usually an awn. 

 If we carefully remove this scale, the " flower glume," we find 



that there is another scale 

 on the opposite (inner) 

 side, and much smaller. 

 This is the "palet." 



Next above this we 

 have the flower, and the 

 most prominent part of 

 the flower, as we see, is 

 the short pistil with the 

 two plume-like styles, and 

 the three stamens at fig. 

 213. But if we are careful 

 in the dissection of the 

 parts we shall see, on look- 

 ing close below the pistil 

 on the side of the flower- 

 ing glume, that there are two minute scales (fig. 215). These are 

 what are termed the lodicules, considered by some to be merely 

 bracts, by others to represent a perianth, that is two of the 



--GL 



Fig. 216. 



Diagram of oak spikelet. G7, glumes ; B, palets 

 A, abortive flower. 



