238 FARM GRASSES OF THE UNITED STATES 
Next is the palet, which is another leaf-like organ, 
usually having two ridges on the back, with a furrow 
between them, thus adapting it to fit snugly against 
the floret next above it in the spikelet. The empty 
glumes, the floral glumes, and the palets constitute 
the ‘‘chaff.’’ In reading what follows it is well to 
refer frequently to Fig. 53, otherwise this description 
will be meaningless to those not familiar with the study 
of botany. The ovary is the part that afterward 
develops into the grain or seed. But no seed could be 
formed were it not for the anthers: 
It will be seen in the figure that at the top of the 
ovary there are two large feather-like projections. 
These are the styles. Over a portion of the surface of 
the style the skin is missing, the bare flesh of the 
style being exposed to the air. This bare area is 
called the stigma. At acertain stage in the. develop- 
ment of the flower the stigma is covered with a 
gummy substance which is of great importance in the 
economy of the flower. 
Let us now turn to the anthers, of which the blue- 
grass flower has three. When ripe these anthers are 
filled with exceedingly small, round, yellowish bodies 
called pollen grains. About the time the gummy sub- 
stance appears on the stigma the anthers burst and a 
shower of pollen falls. When one of the pollen grains 
strikes on the stigma it sticksthere. (See ~, Fig. 54). 
This gum seems to act as a sort of stimulus to the pol- 
len grain, for the grain soon sends out a slender rootlet 
(pollen tube, f¢. Fig. 54,) which grows down into 
the flesh of the stigma much the same as a root grows 
down into the soil. Now there is down in the ovary a 
