GRASS FAMILY. 467 



» * Flowers unisexual (plants monoecious or dioecious). 



9. SCLERIA. Monoecious. No bristles, and the bony or crustaceous 

 akene naked. About a score of small plants known as Nut Rush. 



10. CAREX. MoncBcious or dicecious. Ordinarily no bristles, but the 

 lenticular or triangular akene inclosed in a sac or perigynium. A vast 

 genus, comprising over 200 species in our region, much too difficult for 

 the beginner. Common in all low grounds and in open woods. 



CXXXrV. GRAMINEiE, GRASS FAMILY. 



Grasses, known from other glumaceous plants by their 2- 

 ranked leaves having open sheaths, the jointed stems com- 

 monly, but not always hollow, and the glumes in pairs, viz. a 

 pair to each spikelet even when it consists of a single flower 

 (these called glumes proper), then a succeeding pair {floioering 

 glumes), rarely one of them wanting, these each inclosing a 

 thinner scale or palet. Flower, when perfect, as it more com- 

 monly is, consisting of 3 stamens (rarely 1, 2, or 6), and a 

 pistil, with 2 styles or a 2-cleft style, and 2 either hairy or 

 plumose-branched stigmas; ovary 1-celled, 1-ovuled, becoming 

 a caryopsis (the thin pericarp adnate to the seed and seeming 

 to be an integral part of it) ; the floury part is the albumen of 

 the seed, outside of which lies the embryo (Lessons, Figs. 

 66-70). 



The real structure and arrangement of the flowers and spike- 

 lets of Grasses are too difficult and recondite for a beginner. 

 For their study the Manual must be used ; in which the gen- 

 era both of this and the Sedge Family are illustrated by plates. 

 Here is offered merely a short way of reaching the names of 

 the commonest or most conspicuous species. 



I. Cereal Grains, cultivated for the seed-like fruits. (II., p. 468 ; III., 

 p. 469 ; IV., p. 470 ; V.^ p. 471 ; VI., p. 473 ; VII., p. 475). 



* Stems hollow, or soon becoming so, making straio when cut. 



.*- Spikelets in panicles, often crowded, but not so as to form a spike. 



Oryza satlva, Linn. Rice. Cult. S., from Asia, in low grounds ; 2°-4° 

 high, with upper surface of the lance-linear leaves rough ; flowers one and 

 perfect in each spikelet, with or without rudiments of others ; branches of 

 the panicle erect ; outer glumes minute, the inner coriaceous, very much 

 flattened laterally, so as to be strongly boat-shaped or conduplicate, clos- 

 ing over the grain and falling with it, the outer one commonly bearing an 

 awn ; stamens 6. ® 



