Paleae. The deficiency occurs, accidentally, in some flowers of 

 several British Grasses ; but in many of those belonging to tropical 

 or warm climates the flowers are constantly unisexual, or bear 

 Stamens and Pistil separately, the two kinds being in many in- 

 stances very different in appearance and in relative disposition. 

 We have a familiar example of this in the Maize or Indian Corn, 

 in which the male or stamen-bearing flowers are produced in 

 panicles at the top of the stem, while the female or fruit-bearing 

 form their large, compact, cylindrical spikes within the bases of the 

 lower leaves. 



In certain Grasses, the Palese eventually become altered iu 

 texture, hardening and contracting around the ripening grain, and 

 seeming to constitute a portion of its integument; this circum- 

 stance is occasionally noticed in the descriptions. 



Though exhibiting throughout, as above detailed, a marked 

 uniformity of general structure ; in a group of such vast extent and 

 universal distribution, occupying every range of temperature from 

 the most extreme of polar lands to those under the equator, and 

 from the low ocean-shores of the tropics to the alpine limits of 

 perpetual frost, individual character may be supposed to vary con- 

 siderably. In no instance is such diff'erence more strikingly 

 evinced than in stature. Some of the most diminutive Grasses of 

 barren and exposed situations in cold countries scarcely exceed an 

 inch in height, while the most majestic of the tribe belonging to 

 the torrid zone, the common Bamboo of India, is said sometimes 

 to attain more than a hundred feet, and the growth of other species 

 of the same and corresponding lands to reach fifty or sixty feet. 

 The erect stems of our British Grasses are only of annual, or 

 rather summer duration ; but those of warmer climates, and espe- 

 cially of the larger kinds, are often perennial, some even retaining 

 this character when cultivated in the English garden. Whatever 

 may be its size or duration, the Grass-stem is always proportionally 

 slender in comparison with its elevation above the soil ; but it is 



