CHAPTER IV 

 O^TS 



THE oat plant belongs in the tribe of grasses called 

 Aveneae. In this tribe the spikelets are usually 2- to 

 co-flowered, usually in panicles; all flowers perfect or 

 one staminate; glumes often persistent or remaining 

 after the lemma and palea have fallen, usually longer 

 than the lemma, the latter usually awned on the back, 

 sometimes near the point ; awn geniculate, rarely nearly 

 straight ; palea two-keeled ; style short or none ; stig- 

 mas feathery, protruding above the base or middle of 

 the spikelet ; kernel usually furrowed, embryo small, 

 starch grains compound. 



77. Description. Avena, Linn., the genus including 

 cultivated oats, has usually 2- to 6-flowered spikelets in 

 panicles ; gkimes membranous, unequal ; lemmas rounded 

 on the back, 5- to 9-nerved, often 2-toothed; awn 

 dorsal, geniculate, twisted below (sometimes straight or 

 wanting in cultivated varieties) ; callus of lemmas and 

 the rachilla often hairy ; ovary hairy all over or only at 

 the point; caryopsis fusiform, deeply sulcate. Hackel 

 (1896, p. 121) says there are over fifty species of oats in 

 the temperate zones of the Old World, besides a few in the 

 New World. There are two sections of the genus, 

 annuals and perennials, to the former of which cultivated 

 oats belongs. The spikelets of this section are nodding 



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