496 
ANGIOSPERMS 
over the earth. The many valuable plants, such as Corn, 
Wheat, Oats, Barley, Rye, Rice, 
) 
Fic. 449.— The flowers of the com- 
mon Cat-tail. At the left, a staminate 
flower; at the right, a pistillate flower. 
{ZA 
Millet, Sugar Cane, Sorghum, 
Bluc-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- 
tial reproductive organs are enclosed in bracts and that they 
have a nut-like fruit called a grain or cariopsis. 
Via, 450. — Sugar Cane. 
After Lecomte. 
Besides the grains upon which mankind depends so much for 
food and the Sugar Cane (Fig. 450), which is grown extensively 
a 
