PLANTS. 353 



SIXTY-SEVENTH FAMILY. GRAMINE^B. GRASSES. 

 Steins usually hollow and jointed or with nodes, 

 from which the leaves, partly surrounded with a mem- 

 branous ligula or stipule (membranous appendage) at 

 the base of the leaf or summit of the sheath in the 

 grasses. Inflorescence very abundant, arranged in spikes, 

 panicles, or racemes. The seed or grain clothed first 

 with a fine thin skin, is also enveloped in another cover- 

 ing, which, of an oblong shape and dry, is known as 

 chaff, and many have the chaff furnished with awns, a 

 bristle-like process, called beards or barbs. The plants 

 belonging to this order, Gramineae, the largest of the 

 vegetable kingdom, and most universally diffused, are also 

 doubtless the most important ; the nutritious herbage, 

 whether used green as pasture or dry as hay, and seeds 

 constitute the chief support of herbivorous animals, and 

 the cereals, seeds or grains filled with floury albumen, 

 and cultivated carefully everywhere, furnish food for 

 man. Many of these farinaceous seeds also contain a 

 considerable portion of sugar. The most important mea- 

 dow and pasture grasses are 



I. CYPERACE.E. SEDGES. HALF GRASSES. 



The Sandseggp Sand Reed White Grass (Vignea 

 arenaria). Eoot creeping; leaves small, flat, striped; 

 stalk very tall ; palae (chaff, or immediate floral covering), 

 oblong; triangular ears; thick spikelets; blooms in 

 May ; grows in sandy bottoms, arid furnishes indiffer- 

 ently good fodder for cattle. 



Reed Cut Grass Sedge (Vignea acuta), root creep- 

 ing ; leaves small, flat, sharply cutting ; chaff, or husk, 

 oblong, strongly bristled, slender ; spikelets (ears) brown. 



