86 STRUCTURE OF FLOWER [CH. 



other pairs of more or less boat-shaped scales, smaller and 

 more delicate than the glumes, and known as the pales 

 (palece), while a third pair of still smaller pales is fixed to 

 the end of the axis. In each case one smaller and more 

 delicate inner palea is hinged just inside its more obvious 

 outer palea. In the closed condition of the spikelet each 

 of the three pairs of pales is shut together, and pressed 

 close to the axis, and the pair of glumes shut in the 

 whole. 



On opening each of the lower pairs of pales we find a 

 floiuer inside ; but the terminal pair usually contain only 

 the barren end of the axis. Hence the latter is barren 

 and the former are fertile. 



Each fertile flower is found on careful dissection to 

 consist of a small swollen Ovary, or young grain, covered 

 with silky hairs and with a couple of delicate plumes (the 

 Stigma) at its apex, and three long and slender Stamens ; 

 while the magnifying glass will show two tiny scales at 

 the base — the Lodicules. All our ordinary grasses have 

 their flowers thus constructed — a pair of lodicules, three 

 dangling stamens and an ovary with a feathery two- 

 plumed stigma: each such flower is also enclosed in its 

 pair of pales, and the several pairs of pales of each 

 spikelet, with their contents, are enclosed in the pair of 

 glumes (Figs. 29—32). 



Returning now to the inflorescence. It is clear that 

 we have to distinguish between the entire branched total 

 Inflorescence, and the Spikelets or partial inflorescences 

 of which it is composed. In Botany it is agreed to call 

 any inflorescence consisting of a stalk or axis on which 



