a ai ac aol ee adh wl el te oh de Se Be ma eal a Sepa ee) Mamma 
ei Hill tae Bie ON a a A Ee Ee 
7 : : ? 
Cordyline.] LILIACER. 547 
gradually widened towards the base and stem-clasping, acuminate 
at the base, chartaceous, glabrous, green or purplish ; flowers rather 
nearly so. 
Var. 2, ferrea, Baker: flowers slightly smaller, on distinct 
pedicels shorter or slightly longer than the bractlets. 
gad 1 only: cultivated in Burmese villages, chiefly around khyoungs. 
. CS. 
— 
GRAMINEA. 
Flowers hermaphrodite or unisexual, in spikelets, without any 
rianth, Spikelets 1- or several-flowered, with 1 or racts 
(glumes) at. their base, rarely the glumes wanting. Genitals naked 
or surrounded by 2 or 3 minute scales called Jodicules, enclosed in 
2 oppositely alternating, chaff-like, concave scales, called apper and 
er valves or paleas, those of the lower or the uppermost ones 
often barren or suppressed altogether. Stamens usually 3, rarely 
2-or 3-lobed, or more frequently divided to the base into 2 or 3 more 
or less feathery styles. Fruit [-seeded and seed-like, called usually 
‘a caryopsis, free or adhering to the persistent upper valve, or 
e 
enclosed in both hardened valves. Pericarp very thin, adhering to 
e seed, or rarely loose, coriaceous. or crustaceous or fleshy, or very 
rarely opening in 2 valves. Embryo small, at the base of a mealy 
albumen,—Herbs, or rarely shrubs or trees, with hollow stems inter- 
rupted by solid nodes. Leaves alternate, distichous, parallel-veined, 
sheathing the branches with their bases or rarely (chiefly in bamboos 
on longer or shorter petioles jointed with the sheath, the latter 
i inating in a scarious 
fringed or naked small appendage called a Zigule. Spikelets variously 
arranged in terminal spikes, racemes or panicles. : 
A most important order of — 4,500 species, of which rather 
- more than 170 species are found in Burma and the adjacent islands, 
but of these only the bamboos are woody and can come here into special 
consideration. Amongst the .cereal-grasses, wheat, barley, rye, 
oats, maize, rice and guinea-corn require only to be named, for 
they form the great bulk of food for the sustenance-of man. Other 
food-grains are yielded by Eleusine coracana, millet (Setaria italica, 
