THE TRUE GRASSES. 



(GRAMINEJE.*) 



PART I. 



STRUCTURE, MORPHOLOGY, AND PHYSIOLOGY. 



Special Characters of the Order. Flowers hermaphrodite, 

 rarely unisexual, perianth none, in the axils of enveloping chaff-like 

 scales or bracts (flowering glumes), solitary or united into many- 

 flowered spikelets ; one bract (palea) usually two-keeled and opposite 

 the flowering glume ; one very small scale (anterior lodicule) split to 

 the base and usually herbaceous, above the flowering glume; rarely 

 with another entire scale (posterior lodicule) above the palea; oc- 

 casionally with the palea only, or even without that ; very rarely 

 truly terminal. 



Stamens usually in a whorl of three (rarely two) members, some- 

 times in two alternating whorls ; the number of stamens in a whorl 

 is very rarely either much increased, or reduced by abortion to one. 

 Carpel single, standing opposite the palea. Ovary one-celled, 

 usually with two lateral, rarely with three or one, styles. Ovule 

 solitary, slightly campylotropous, without a funiculus and with the 

 micropyle turned downwards. Fruit usually a caryopsis rich in 

 amylaceous matter. The embryo, covered only by the pericarp, lies 

 outside of the albumen at the front and base of it. Embryo usually 

 small and straight with a shield-shaped cotyledon, in the anterior 

 cavity or furrow of which lies the plumule, having several rudimen- 

 tary leaves, and the radicle with its surrounding tissues. 



* IMPORTANT LITERATURE : R. Brown, General Remarks, etc., in 

 'Vermischte Schriften, I. p 107. Palisot de Beauvois, Essai d'une Nou- 

 velle Agrostographie, Paris, 1812. Kunth, Revision des Grammees, Paris, 

 1829, and Agrostographia give Enum. Graminum, Stuttgart, 1833. 

 Roper, Beitrdge z. Flora Mecklenburgs, 2 parts, Rostock, 1844. Payer, 

 Traite d' Organogenic de la Fleur, p. 701, Paris, 1857. Doll, Flora d. 

 GrossJierz. Baden, and in Martius et Eichler, Flora Brasiliensis, vol. II. 

 parts II. and III. Eichler, Bluthendiagramme, I. 199. Hackel, Uhter- 

 sucfiungen iiher die Lodiculce der Grciser, in Engler's Bot. Jahrb. , I. 

 336. Bentham in Journ. Linn. Society, XIX. p. 14, and in Bentham 

 and Hooker's Genera Plantarum, III. p. 1074. 



