20 



the inner side, there is usually a small, thin, membranous organ, called 

 the ligule or tongue. This is sometimes half an inch long, more com- 

 monly only two or three lines, and sometimes it is almost absent or re- 

 duced to a short ring, but its length and size are very constant in the 

 same species. This ligule represents the stipules which occur at the 

 base of the leaves in many of the higher plants. The blade or lamina 

 is the expanded part of the leaf, but is usually called by the general 

 name leaf. In the majority of grasses the leaf is long and narrow ; that 

 is, many times longer than wide. There is one central nerve, called the 

 midnerve or midrib, extending to the point of the leaf, with numerous 

 finer nerves on each side running parallel to it, and not connected by 

 conspicuous transverse nerves nor giving off branches. These leaves are 

 in some species rough, in others smooth, hairy, or downy, etc. The agri- 

 cultural value of a grass depends mainly upon the quantity, quality, 

 size, and nutritive properties of the leaves. 



(4) The flowers of the grasses are generally at the end of the stem or 

 the side branches, sometimes very few in number, sometimes in great 

 abundance, sometimes in a close spike, and sometimes in a panicle, with 

 many spreading branches or rays. The flowers may be single on the 

 branches or on the pedicels, or they may be variously clustered. In 

 the common redtop (Agrostis alba or A. vulgaris) there is a single flower 

 at the end of each of the small branch lets of the panicle. Each of these 

 flowers is inclosed by a pair of small leaf-like scales or chaff, called the 

 outer or empty glumes. The flower consists of (1) the essential organs 

 and (2) the envelopes. The essential organs are the stamens and pistils, 

 which may readily be seen when the grass is in bloom. The stamens, 

 of which there are usually three in each flower, consist of the anther and 

 filament, the anther being the small organ which contains the pollen or 

 dust which fertilizes the pistil or female organ, and the filament being 

 the thread-like stem on which the anther is borne. 



The pistil is the central organ of the flower, and consists of three 

 parts ; the ovary, the style, and the stigmas. In most grasses the style 

 is divided into two branches. The stigmas are the delicate organs, 

 usually of a plumose form, at the extremities of these branches, which 

 receive the pollen for the fertilization of the flower; and the ovary is 

 that part at the base which contains the future seed. 



The envelopes of the flower are usually two leaf like scales or husks, 

 inclosing between them the stamens #ud pistil. These scales face each 

 other, one being a very little higher on the axis than the other, and also 

 usually smaller and more delicate in texture. This smaller scale is 

 called the palet ; the other larger and usually coarser one the flowering 

 glume; its edges generally overlap and partly inclose the palet. 



The flower constituted as above described, together with the pair of 

 outer or empty glumes at the base, form what is called a spikelet. Jn 

 many cases, however, there are two, three, or more flowers, sometimes 

 even ten to twenty, in one spikelet. in which case they are arranged 



