GLUMACEiE. 227 



TRIBE II. GLUMACEjE, 



(Or plants bearing glumes or chaff.) 



By Linnaeus the chaff of the glumiferous plants was considered 

 as the calyx, or corolla, or both, because it corresponded in 

 place to these organs in other plants. Although these organs 

 are associated with the other common parts of the flower, they 

 are not now considered as the same, but as bracts, imbricated or 

 lying over each other. We are familiar with these glumaceous 

 » organs in the chaff of rye, wheat, oats, barley, &c. 



These glumiferous plants are disposed in two orders ; 1. the 

 Gramine.*:, or Proper Grasses, and 2. the Cyperoide^e, or 

 Sedge Grasses. By the common observer, both are blended under 

 the general name of the Grasses. 



In both these orders, the essential organs of fructification are, 

 generally, found in each flower, though these organs are occasion- 

 ally on different plants, or different parts of the same plant. 

 Among the Sedge Grasses, the genus Carex, of which more than 

 160 species have been found in North America, never has the 

 stamens and pistils, the essential organs, situated in one flower, 

 but the plants are monoecious or dioecious. 



The Proper Grasses have cylindrical or hollow stems, with a 

 large portion of silex deposited in the outer coat of the stem, as 

 in wheat, rye, reed, cane, &c. The stems are sometimes so 

 siliceous as to strike fire with steel. Their seeds contain a large 

 quantity of farinaceous matter, which renders them nutritious as 

 the food of man and of various animals. That the seed of wheat, 

 rye, rice, &c, are so exclusively used for food, is because those 

 seeds are larger, and the plants are more readily cultivated, and 

 yield a greater quantity of seed to the same space of land, and 

 not because others do not contain farina to the same extent. 



In the Sedge Grasses, the stems are not fistular or hollow, as 

 in the others, but are angular, solid, or with a pith extending 

 through them. The seeds, too, are mostly destitute of the 

 farinaceous nutriment found in the other order of the glume plants. 

 The Sedges, though many species are eaten by cattle as fodder, 

 are not relished by them except in their young state, and are 



