INTRODUCTORY. 



sorting out the inflorescences of all our British grasses into either 

 spikes or panicles. Let us agree then that it is a panicle, as it 

 undoubtedly is in the very strictest sense. 



Having advanced so far we will eliminate a few exceptions 

 from the group. Is the sheath quadrangular and not split ? 

 No. Then its genus is not Melica. Is the sheath white with 

 red veins ? No. Then it is not Holcus. Are the leaves glaucous 

 above and dark green underneath ? No. Then it is not Triodia. 

 Is the stem solid and bent at the only node ? No. Then it is 

 not Molinia. Are its spikelets orbicular ? 



But what is a spikelet ? That 

 which is often called the flower of 

 the grass, consisting of a pair of 

 bracts known as glumes, which en- 

 close one or more flowers, better 

 called florets, placed on an axis 

 (rachilla) one above the other 

 alternately, each floret being, typi- 

 cally, enclosed in another pair of 

 bracts of its own. 

 \m w imp It would have saved obscurity 



"""^vAIJ/ in many botanical descriptions of 



the grasses if each of these four 

 bracts, the lower pair and the 

 upper pair, had been given a 

 special name. Even the old plan 

 of calling the upper pair glumellas 

 was better than the prevailing 

 fashion in which the higher of 

 the upper pair is the palea, the 

 next the flowering glume or fruiting glume, and the lower pair 

 •the glumes, with inevitable references to the upper glume and 

 the lower glume and a consequent doubt as to whether barren 

 glume or flowering glume is meant. To avoid trouble of this 

 sort, the lower pair have in this book been spoken of as glumes 

 and the upper pair as paleae, the lower glume being called the 

 outer glume, the upper the inner glume. The lower palea (that 



Panicle. 



