GRAMINE^E 409 



stamens, two on the palea side one on the glume 

 side ; and in front of these, next the glume, two soft 

 white bodies (/ in D) called ^ lodicules. In young 

 unopened flowers the lodicules may be difficult to make 

 out, but when the styles or stamens are protruding 

 they may be seen through a good lens without any 

 difficulty. 



Such is the structure of the grass flower ; the es- 

 sential organs, the ovary and stamens, are present, 

 but no ordinary sepals or petals, and the homology of 

 the palea and lodicules is obscure. The ovary is the 

 first to mature, the feathery styles being pushed out 

 between the glume and its palea, which are separated 

 a little by the swelling of the lodicules ; afterwards 

 the stamens emerge, their long versatile anthers dang- 

 ling down at the ends of the very slender filaments. 

 The ovary ripens into an achene, with one seed 

 enclosed in the pericarp and inseparable from it ; this 

 fruit is usually called the grain, and in some genera 

 remains enclosed between the glume and the palea. 



Now in nearly all the families we have studied, the 

 flower is the unit of the inflorescence, being repeated 

 over and over again to form it. In the COMPOSITE 

 we get something a little more complicated, for we 

 may have corymbs or spikes of flower heads; and in 

 the genus EUPHORBIA this is still more the case, the 

 cyathium being the indivisible unit. In the grasses 

 the flower is again not the unit, for several go to 

 make up, with two empty glumes, a little independent 

 spike, which is repeated over and over again. Hence 

 the importance of the conception of the spikelet, and 

 its name. The inflorescence, i.e. the arrangement of 



