^CHAPTER I. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



WE will begin by taking a grass in bloom and arriving at its 

 name as quickly as we can. Perhaps, however, our specimen 

 is not a grass but a sedge, and we may as well get over that 

 difficulty at once. The stem of a sedge is always solid and 

 generally triangular ; that of a grass is generally hollow, rounded, 

 and never three-sided. The leaves of a sedge are in three ranks ; 

 those of a grass are alternate in two ranks. In both, the leaves em- 

 brace the stem with sheaths, but in grasses the sheaths are nearly 

 always split, while in sedges they are not. further, where the 

 leaf -blade joins the sheath in grasses the inner side of the sheath 

 is more or less prolonged into a sort of membranous edging 

 known as the ligule, whereas a sedge has no ligule. 



There are other distinctions we may deal with later on, 

 but we have enough to make sure that we have a grass and 

 not a sedge ; for the stem is round and hollow, the leaves are 

 alternate in two series, the sheath is split and there is an un- 

 mistakable ligule. 



How about the inflorescence, that is the arrangement of 

 the flowers on the stem ? Is it a spike, that is having the flowers 

 attached to the axis without a pedicel or stalk to each ; is it a 

 raceme in which the pedicels are the primary branches ; or is it 

 a panicle in which the flowers grow on the secondary or remoter 

 branches ? For our present purpose we need not trouble our- 

 selves regarding the raceme, and we can assume that what looks 

 like a spike is really a spike, though closer inspection may show 

 it not to be strictly within the definition . Dealing with them 

 in this oil-hand way, wc shall find that there is no difficulty in 



