496 



ANGIOSPERMS 



over the earth. The many valuable plants, such as Corn, 

 Wheat, Oats, Barley, Rye, Rice, Millet, Sugar Cane, Sorghum, 



Blue-Grass, Timothy, and 

 others that are included, make 

 the Grass family the most im- 

 portant family of Angiosperms. 

 Except the Bamboos, which 

 are shrubs or trees, the Grasses 

 are herbaceous. Some have 

 unisexual {Fig. 14, 16), while 

 others have bisexual flowers 

 {Fig. 18), and the flowers are 

 commonly arranged in spikes 

 or panicles. Their chief char- 

 acteristics are that their essen- 



FiG. 449. — ^The flowers of the com- 

 mon Cat-tail. At the left, a staminate 

 flower; at the right, a pistillate flower. 



tial reproductive organs are enclosed in bracts and that they 

 have a nut-like fruit called a grain or cariopsis. 



FiQ. 450. — Sugar Cane. After Lecomte, 



Besides the grains upon which mankind depends so much tor 

 food and the Sugar Cane {Fig. 450), which is grown extensively 



