LY. GEAMINE^. 881 



margins free, or very rarely more or less united ; blade entire, usually narrow, linear, 

 sometimes oblong or oval, margins very often scabrid, nerves parallel [united 

 by transverse venules] ; stipule axillary, adnate by its dorsal face to the sheath, and 

 produced as a membranous tongue (ligule). INFLORESCENCE of spikelets arranged 

 along an axis (rachis), sometimes sessile on the rachis (spiked), sometimes borne 

 on branched peduncles and diffuse (panided) or shortly branched (a spicate panicle), 

 rarely fascicled and enclosed in a common spathe ; spikelets 1 - several-flowered, often 

 containing sterile flowers, each with an involucre of two scaly opposite bracts 

 (glumes), 1 nearly on a level, one embracing the other, sometimes absent. FLOWERS 

 $ , rarely diclinous monoecious or dioecious, sometimes polygamous, each with 

 2 sub-opposite bracts (palece or glumelles), of which the lower and outer is largest, 

 unequally nerved or keeled, furnished with a terminal or dorsal or basilar awn, or 

 muticous ; upper and inner glumelle sheathed by the lower, emarginate or bifid, 

 rarely obsolete or arrested, usually with no midrib, and having 2 lateral nerves. 

 PERIANTH imperfect, very rarely 0, composed of whorled hypogynous membranous 

 fleshy irregular scales (squamules), which are free or connate, normally 3, the 2 outer 

 alternate with the palese, the inner opposite to the upper palea, often heteroinorphous 

 and narrower, usually obsolete. STAMENS hypogynous, definite, usually 3, sometimes 

 6 (Oryza, Potamophila, Hydrochloa, Zizania, Pharus, Nastus, Bambusa, &c.), rarely 4 

 (Microlwna, Anomochloa, Tetrarrhena), or 2 (Anthoxanthum, &c.), or 1 (Uniola, &c.), 

 very rarely indefinite, when the ovary is arrested (Luziola, Pariana) ; in the 

 hexandrous flowers whorled around the ovary ; in the triandrous, 2 opposite to the 

 lateral nerves of the upper palea, and 1 to the lower glumelle ; in the diandrous 

 the outer is wanting ; in the monandrous the outer only is present ; filaments capil- 

 lary, free, or sometimes cohering at the base ; anthers dorsifixed, 2-celled, linear, 

 usually 2-fid at the two ends, dehiscence lateral, longitudinal, or very rarely apical. 

 OVARY free, 1 -celled, 1-ovuled ; styles 2, very rarely 3, free or connate at the base, 

 sometimes united into an undivided style ; stigmas with simple or branched hairs ; 

 ovule adnate to the posterior part of the ovary throughout its length, or by its base, 

 very rarely suspended below the top. FRUIT free or adnate to one or both of the 

 glumelles, dry, indehiscent; pericarp usually thin, membranous or coriaceous, and 

 adhering to the seed (caryopsis), rarely membranous and dehiscent (Sporobolus), 

 usually presenting a dark mark at the level of the hilum, where the testa is attached 

 to the pericarp; albumen farinaceous, or between farinaceous and horny, very thick. 

 EMBRYO outside of the albumen, in a pit at the base of its anterior face ; cotyledon 

 scutellate, often split along its outer face, and showing the radicle and plumule ; 

 plumule terminal, conical, composed of 1-4 primary convolute leaves ; radicle basilar, 

 thick, obtuse, often with several tubercles which are perforated at germination by 

 radical fibres, each springing from one of these tubercles, and surrounded at their 

 base by a small sheath (cbleorrhiza) , the remains of the perforated portion of the 

 embryo. 



1 By recent authors tbe term glume is, as here, con- called empty glumes ; and the lower or outer glumelle is 

 fined to these two bracts; by other authors these are called flowering glume. Ito. 



3L 



