230 



LESSON'S WITS PLANTS 



263a. The grass family comprises not only the plants which we 

 commonly know as grasses, but also all the cereal grains, as wheat, 

 maize, rice, barley, rye, oats and also sorghum and sugar cane. 

 The bamboos are grasses. The group is proba- 

 bly most abundant in actual number of plants 

 of any family of flowering plants, but the num- 

 ber of distinct kinds is less than in several other 

 families, numbering about two thousand five 

 hundred. There are two recent monographs 

 upon grasses which the pupil may easily procure : 

 Haekel's "True Grasses" (translated by Lamson- 

 Scribner and Southworth), and Beal's "Grasses 

 of North America." The latter is in two vol- 

 umes, the first comprising a general discussion 

 and an account of the agricultural status of 

 the grass tribes, the second containing a de- 

 scription of the North American grasses. De- 

 scriptions of the different kinds of grasses, with 

 special reference to their agricultural uses, may 

 also be found in various publications issued by 

 the United States Department of Agriculture. 



Suggestions. — The grasses are too critical (the floral parts too 

 minute, too similar and too much disguised) to be profitable sub- 

 jects of study for the beginner, but the pupil should observe the 

 manner of inflorescence of the different kinds, and he should espe- 

 cially be able to determine the blooming time of the grains and 

 meadow grasses. 



Fig. 221. 



Staminate flower 

 of carex. 



XLIII. PARTICULAR TYPES OF FLOWERS, 

 CONCLUDED. (SEDGES) 



264. We have already been introduced to the 

 sedges (Obs. xxx., Figs. 165, 166). The same sedge 

 which is seen in flower in Fig. 166 is seen fully ripe 



