30 BRITISH CEREALS. 



panicles, in the other three British cereals they are in spikes 

 but again our shortest way is to put matters into tabular form : 



Panicle. Oats. 

 Spike. 



Spikelets solitary on each notch. 



Glumes awl-shaped, with one nerve. Rye. 

 Glumes ovate, with three or more nerves. Wheat. 

 Spikelets two or three on each notch. Barley. 



At a further stage in the flowering we are afforded another 

 means of recognition, which we can again arrange in a table more 

 likely to be remembered than the foregoing, as we are approach- 

 ing what many may look upon as common knowledge — which 

 it certainly is not to the ordinary townsman. 



Spikelets on long stalks. 



Florets two to six. Oats. 

 Spikelets sessile or apparently so. 

 Spikelets solitary. 



Spikelets alike in size. 

 Terminal spikelet absent. 

 Florets two or three. Rye. 

 Lowest spikelet smaller than the rest. 



With terminal spikelet, occasionally aborted. 

 Florets two to five. Wheat. 

 Spikelets in twos or threes. 

 Floret one. Barley. 



Sometimes, in grey, cool weather, the florets do not open at 

 all, and in that case the flower is necessarily self -pollinated. 

 When this happens with Rye the result is sterility, but with 

 our other three cereals this does not matter ; in fact, they are 

 largely self-fertilised, owing to some of the pollen drifting on to 

 the stigma when the anthers open and scatter it about in the air. 



Generally speaking the florets open before breakfast on 

 warm sunny mornings when the air is dry. In Wheat they only 

 remain open for an hour or less, and for morning after morning 

 lor more than a week the pollination of each spike will go on. 



