358 GEASS FAMILY. 



» * Lang white silh/ down with the flowers. 

 Sd^ccharum officin&rum, T»de Sugar-Cane : cult, far S. ; rarely 

 left to £ower, propagated by cuttings ; stem 8° - 20° high, 1 ' - 2' thick, y. 



Gynferium argtoteum, Pampas Grass. Tall reed-like grass, from 

 S. America, planted out for ornament ; with a large tuft of rigid linear and 

 tapering recurved-spreading leaves, several feet in length; the flowering stem 6 

 to 12 feet high, in autumn bearing an ample silvery-silky panicle, y. 



§ 2. Spiheleis in spiked: staminate and pistillate separate, 

 » In the same spike, the upper part of which is staminate, the lower pistillate. 



Tripsacum dactyloldes, Gama Grass, Sesame Grass. Wild in 

 moist soil from Conn. S. : proposed for fodder S. ; nutritious, but too coarse ; 

 leaves almost as large as those of Indian com ; spikes narrow, composed of a 

 row of joints which break apart at maturity ; the fertile cylindrical, the exter- 

 nally cartilaginous spikelets immersed in the rhachis, the sterile pai't thinner 

 and flat, y, 



* * In different spikes. 



Zfea Miys, Maize, Indiak Corn. Stem terminated by the clustered 

 slender spikes of staminate flowers (the tassel.) in 2-flowered spikelets; the pis- 

 tillate flowers in a dense and many-rowed spike home on a short axillary branch, 

 two flowers within each pair of glnnies, but the lower one neutral, the upper pii- 

 tiUate, with an extremely long style, the silk. © 



