50 A MANUAL OF FARM GRASSES 



back. The spikelets of redtop and of timothy are very 

 small and are i -flowered, consisting of a pair of glumes 

 and a lemma and palea. 



The spikelets of wheat and oats are large enough to be 

 examined easily with the unaided eye, but the spikelets 

 of some grasses, such as redtop and timothy, are so small 

 (only 1/12 inch long) that a hand lens or small magni- 

 fying glass is needed to make out their structure satis- 

 factorily. 



The botanical classification of grasses is based upon 

 the structure of the spikelets, and a botanical description 

 emphasizes the details of these, but in the present work, 

 which is agricultural rather than botanical, the descrip- 

 tions of the spikelets are brief and include only such 

 details as can be seen easily without dissection. 



Seed. — The seed is always developed from a flower. 

 In grasses a single seed is developed from each flower, 

 and each spikelet may produce as many seeds as there 

 are perfect flowers. When the seeds are rather large they 

 are usually known as grains. This term is applied espe- 

 cially to corn and the cultivated grasses known as 

 "small grains," such as wheat and oats. On the other 

 hand the term grain is not applied to the small seeds of 

 redtop, bluegrass, and timothy. Botanically the so- 

 called seed of grasses is a fruit. The "seed" or grain of 

 wheat is a fruit (ripened ovary) containing a single seed 

 which is grown fast to the walls of the fruit to form the 

 grain. When a grain of corn is soaked in water the 

 enclosing fruit can be peeled off as a separate covering 

 leaving the actual seed. For practical purposes the 

 seed and fruit of grasses are the same and ix\ this work 



