GRASS FAMILY. 467 



* * Flowers unisexual (plants monoecious or dioecious'). 



9. SCLERI A. Monoecious. No bristles, and the bony or crustaceous 

 akene naked. About a score of small plants known as Nut Kush. 



10. CAREX. Monoecious or dioecious. Ordinarily no bristles, but the 

 lenticular or triangular akene inclosed in a sac or perigynium. A vast 

 genus, comprising over 200 species in our region, much too difficult for 

 the beginner. Common in all low grounds and in open woods. 



cxxxiv. graminej:, gbass family. 



Grasses, known from other glumaceous plants by their 2- 

 ranked leaves having open sheaths, the jointed stems com- 

 monly, but not always hollow, and the glumes in pairs, viz. a 

 pair to each spikelet even when it consists of a single flower 

 (these called glumes proper), then a succeeding pair (flowering 

 glumes), rarely one of them wanting, these each inclosing a 

 thinner scale or palet. Flower, when perfect, as it more com- 

 monly is, consisting of 3 stamens (rarely 1, 2, or 6), and a 

 pistil, with 2 styles or a 2-cleft style, and 2 either hairy or 

 plumose-branched stigmas ; ovary 1-celled, 1-ovuled, becoming 

 a caryopsis (the thin pericarp adnate to the seed and seeming 

 to be an integral part of it) ; the floury part is the albumen of 

 the seed, outside of which lies the embryo (Lessons, Figs. 

 66-70). 



The real structure and arrangement of the flowers and spike- 

 lets of Grasses are too difficult and recondite for a beginner. 

 For their study the Manual must be used ; in which the gen- 

 era both of this and the Sedge Family are illustrated by plates. 

 Here is offered merely a short way of reaching the names of 

 the commonest or most conspicuous species. 



I. Cereal Grains, cultivated for the seed-like fruits. (II., p. 468 ; III., 

 p. 469 ; IV., p. 470 ; V., p. 471 ; VI., p. 473 ; VII., p. 475). 



* Stems hollow, or soon becoming so, making: straw when cut. 



+- Spikelets in panicles, often crowded, but not so as to form a spike. 



Oryza satlva, Linn. Rice. Cult. S., from Asia, in low grounds; 2°-4° 

 high, with upper surface of the lance-linear leaves rough ; flowers one and 

 perfect in each spikelet, with or without rudiments of others ; branches of 

 the panicle erect ; outer glumes minute, the inner coriaceous, very much 

 flattened laterally, so as to be strongly boat-shaped or conduplicate, clos- 

 ing over the grain and falling with it, the outer one commonly bearing an 

 awn ; stamens 6. ® 



