6 



rarely tliere is a third lodioule between the flower and the palea; 

 stamens, usually three (rarely two or one, or more than three) 

 with very slender filaments and two-celled, usually versatile 

 anthers; pistil with a one-celled, one-ovuled ovary, and one t<> 

 three, usually two, styles with variously branched, most fre- 

 quently plumose, stigmas; embryo small, lying at the front and 

 base of the seed, covered only by the thin pericarp; fruit a 

 caryopsis, rich in albumen. (In Sporobolxs and Eleusine the thin 

 pericarp is free from the seed. ) 



Number of species. There are about thirty-five hundred 

 known species of grasses, varying in size from the moss- 

 like Coleanthus of the Xorth to the tree-like bamboos of 

 the Tropics, which tower to the height of 30 m. or more; 

 and ranging in distribution from Kerguelen Land on 

 the South to the extreme limit of vegetation beyond the 

 Arctic Circle. There is no order of plants more widely 

 distributed, or existing under a greater diversity of soil 

 and climate, and no other order presents such a vast 

 number of individual plants or is so important and 

 directly useful to man. 



Series A. PanicaceyE. 



Spikelets one- rarely two-flowered ; when two-flowered 

 the second or terminal one is perfect, the first or lower 

 one being either staminate or neuter; rachilla articu- 

 lated below the empty glumes, the spikelets falling from 

 the pedicels entire, either singly, in groups, or together 

 with the joints of an articulate rachis. The first six 

 tribes belong to this series. 



Tribe I. May dew. 



Spikelets unisexual, the staminate forming a part of the inflo- 

 rescence with the pistillate, or each in a separate inflorescence on 

 the same plant; flowering glumes hyaline or much less firm 

 in texture than the outer ones; axis of the female spikelets 

 usually articulated. 



