136 



THE POPULAR EDUCATOR. 



flowers composed cf sepals and petals, just like the plants we 

 luve already discussed ; but as for grasses and sedges, they 

 would be pronounced by an inexperienced person flowerless ; 

 indeed, they aie flowerless in the ordinary acceptation of the 

 term that is to say, they have neither calyx nor corolla but 

 their reprodictive organs are protected by peculiar modifications 

 of those changeable bodies, " bracts." This character of in- 

 florescence is said to be "glumaceous," and the floral appendage 

 of a grass is said, in the language of botany to be a glume 

 (Latin, gluma, a husk). 



In the few remarks which we have to make on endogenous 

 plants, we shall not follow the systematic plan of giving them 

 precisa botanical characteristics, but shall generalise with a view 

 of enabling the reader to regard the members of this division 

 under a broad aspect. In addition, then, to the great cha- 

 racteristics of the endogenous division already enumerated, it 

 remains now to be mentioned that the leaves of endogenous 

 plants are not attached to the parent stem, like those of exogens, 

 by a joint or axil ; and that the calyx, corolla, and reproductive 

 organs have a tendency to the num- 

 ber three, or of some multiple of 

 ihat number ; whereas the corre- 

 sponding parts of exogens assume 

 for the most part the number five, or 

 its multiples. Not that the rule is 

 invariable, but it is very general. 

 By examinining lilies (Fig. 277), tulips, 

 etc., and comparing them with exo- 

 gens, the reader will satisfy himself 

 of the correctness of this remark. 



The common garden asparagus is 

 regarded by botanists as a lily, as in 

 like manner are the gigantic dragon- 

 trees, as was noticed in our remarks 

 on the " Scientific Classification of 

 Vegetables" (Vol. I., p. 55). 



For the most part endogenous 

 plants have no branches, but send ono 

 trunk or stem aloft. On the opposite 

 page is a figure of the Banana (tribe 

 Musacece), a good example of the stem 

 of an endogen. To this, however, 

 there are a few exceptions. Asparagus 

 is branched, as everybody knows. 

 The dragon-tree is also branched, and 

 so is the doom-palm of Upper Egypt. 



GBAMINACE.E, OE GRASSES. 



Let us now proceed to an exami- 

 nation of the grasses vegetables 

 which constitute a most valuable and 

 very well-characterised natural order, 

 designated by the botanical term 

 Graminacece (Latin, gramen, grass). 



The grasses, though generally un- 

 pretending in aspect, are, without 



doubt, more useful than any vegetable productions whatever. 

 The smaller species clothe our fields with verdure, and afford 

 nourishment to cattle. The large species furnish us with bread 

 and sugar ; for at this period of" our botanical investigations 

 the reader need not be informed that wheat, barley, rice, 

 maize, oats, rye, and the sugar-cane are all grasses. The 

 slightest inspection of a leaf of one of this tribe suffices to in- 

 dicate that grasses are endogenous plants. An examination 

 of the seed affords similar information. These matters 

 scarcely require notice, their perception is so evident. The 

 flower of a grass, however, is a very curious arrangement of 

 parts, unlike anything which has yet come under our notice, 

 petals and sepals being altogether absent, and the external parts 

 of the flower being exclusively composed of green or brown 

 scales, called glumes ; hence grasses, are said to possess a gluma- 

 ceous flower. These scales, to which the term glume is applied, 

 are no other than bracts, which we have already seen to be 

 capable of such extraordinary metamorphoses, becoming in the 

 oak an acorn-cup, in the pine-apple the part we eat. 



Grasses are not excluded from any quarter of the globe ; but 

 the number of individuals, though not of species, is greatest in 

 the northern temperate regions. As we approach the equator 



277. LIMES. 1, LILTOM TESTACEUM ; 2, LltltTM SPECIOStTM 

 5 METHONICA LEOPOLDI ; 4, CUMMINGIA TBIMACULATA. 



the number of individuals decreases proportionately with an in- 

 crease in the number of species. The stem, too, becomes woody, 

 the leaves enlarge, and the organs of reproduction are frequently 

 checked in their development, owing to this luxuriance of 

 vegetation. The cultivated cereals have become so transported 

 from one land to another, that it is now quite impossible to 

 determine with certainty the native regions of many species. 

 Oafcs and rye are mostly cultivated towards the north ; barley 

 and wheat in more temperate regions ; maize in America, and 

 rice in Asia. The seed, or, more correctly speaking, the fruit, of 

 these afford sustenance to the greater portion of the human 

 species. The analogy of the chemical composition of grasses 

 indicates not less than their external characteristics their mutual 

 affinity, pointing out the whole family as essentially nutritive 

 vegetables. Their herbaceous, or, in larger species, their woody 

 stem, is enveloped in a shiny coat of silica, or flinty matter. In- 

 ternally, the stem contains phosphate of lime, albumen, sugar, 

 and mucilage. The grain, as we will at present denominate the 

 so-called seed, contains starch and gluten in abundance, mixed 

 with a certain quantity of sugar, the 

 amount of which increasestowards the 

 period of germination, also a little 

 fixed oil and various saline matters. 



Innocuity and the presence of nu- 

 tritive principles are the grand cha- 

 racteristics of grasses physiologically 

 considered. Tet to this description 

 certain species offer an exception ; 

 darnel-grass (Loliwni temulentum) is 

 strongly poisonous, owing to the pre- 

 sence of the chemical principle loline. 

 Festuca quadridentata, a species 

 which grows abundantly in Peru, is 

 mortal to cattle which browse upon 

 it Another species, a Calamagrostis, 

 is juiceless, and when swallowed by 

 animals injures their throats, rather 

 on account of the flinty matter with 

 which it is profusely coated than 

 because of any poisonous principle. 

 Finally, the rhizome of certain species 

 of the genus Bromus is purgative. 

 Amongst the chemical principles con- 

 tained in many species of grasses, 

 various odorous matters should not be 

 forgotten. Every person is acquainted 

 with the agreeable odour diffused by 

 hay. This odour depends on the pre- 

 sence of coumarin in a species of grass 

 called AntJioxanthum odoratum. The 

 sugar-cane, moreover, is delicately 

 odorous ; its tender shoots filling an 

 apartment with an agreeable fra- 

 grance ; but the odorous principle is 

 most highly developed in the lemon- 

 grass of the West Indies, the leaves 

 of which smell so exactly like those of the verbena, or lemon- 

 plant, that it is difficult by the test of odour to distinguish 

 between the two. In either case the odorous principle depends 

 on the presence of a volatile oil ; indeed, much of the essential 

 oil commonly sold as that of verbena is really derived'from the 

 West Indian lemon-grass. 



The sugar-cane is supposed to be a native of tis south-eastern 

 portion of Asia. It was totally unknown to the ancient Greeks 

 and Romans, as in like manner was sugar. From South- Eastern 

 Asia the cane was introduced into Arabia; from Arabia it 

 travelled into Egypt, Asia Minor, Sicily, Italy, and Spain. From 

 the latter country it was transported to St. Domingo and the 

 mainland of America. Sugar had preceded the cane in Europe 

 by a considarable period ; but there is reason to suppose that 

 the substance, although absolutely identical in composition with 

 that of the cane, was derived, not from it, but from the juice of 

 palm-trees. In Ceylon the art of manufacturing sugar from 

 the juice of palm-trees has been known to the natives from time- 

 immemorial. The manufacture of sugar, however, from the 

 cane was in that island a European introduction. Nevertheless, 

 the Cingalese possessed the cane, and used it by way of drssert. 

 This use cf the sugar-cane still prevails in many countries, 



