62 THE GRASSES 



The upper or inner pair of leaflets or palets, (palese) is 

 here only half the size of the former, truncate (the apex cut 

 off) and include the ovary with two distinct styles termi- 

 nated by feathery stigmas. From the base of the ovary 

 ascend three stamens with thread-like filaments, versatile 

 bilocular and comparatively large anthers. 



2. Blue grass — Poa pratensis. L. Inflorescence a pani- 

 cle. It will be remembered that above the tassel of Indian 

 corn has been designated a pyramidal raceme ; i. e. from the 

 rachis or flower-bearing prolongation of the culm radiate 

 secondary axis, pyramidally decreasing toward the apex. 

 Those lateral axes again and often redivided constitute th'e 

 panicle. This panicle is short pyramidal. In Poa com- 

 pressa (wire grass) dense and narrow, in Orchard grass clus- 

 tered and dense ; Oat (avena sativa) is also panicled. Pani- 

 cle at the time of fructification open and spreading at length 

 drooping. Widely and loosely is termed diffuse, erect if 

 the branches point upward, contracted if the branches are 

 drawn close to the rachis, which often is the case after the 

 flowering period. 



The spikelets are ovate lanceolate ovate, crowded, and 

 most of them almost sessile on the branches. Each spike- 

 let consists of a pair of glumes shorter than the flowers, of 

 which there are three to five ; "the uppermost flower remains 

 small and undeveloped. (Timothy we have seen to contain 

 in each spikelet only one flower.) 



Lower palet stouter in structure than the npper one, mem- 

 branaceo-herbaceous, with a delicate scarious margin, com- 

 pressed-keeled, pointless, five-nerved, (the intermediate 

 nerves more obscure or obsolete) hairy at the margin and 

 keel ; upper palet very delicate, two-toothed at the apex. Sta- 

 mens two to three, stigmas plumose. 



The presence or absence, number and condition of the 

 nerves (vascular bundles) in the glumes and palese are of the 

 greatest importance in the analysis of grasses, for not only . 



