290 THE VEGETABLE WORLD. 
Ricx (Oryza satioa), originally from India, presents a panicle of 
rigid and erect branches, with unifloral spikelets, the flower pre- 
senting six stamens. 
Maze (Zea) is monsxceots—that is to say, it presents both the 
ee organs upon the same stalk. The flowers with stamens are 
ed in a terminal panicle. The flowers with pistils have their 
spsulats close together, the lateral arm enclosed in a large spatha, 
which is nothing but the sheathing petiole of a leaf deprived of its 
limb. The stigma of these pistils are thread-like and very long. The 
ensemble of these stigma is like a handful of long filaments, hung 
carelessly towards the earth like a tuft of hair. The names of 
Turkish, Spanish, and Guinea wheat and Indian corn, which have 
been given to Maize, are quite fallacious, for it is indigenous to the 
tropics of America. With the exception of Wheat and Rice, Maize 
is the most useful as well as the most universally cultivated of the 
grasses. Almost all Asiatics, Africans, and Americans use it as 
their chief nourishment. The Sugar Cane, another plant of the 
tilles, furnishes us with sugar for domestic purposes. 
The Graminaces, in its 4,000 species, comprehends our most 
valuable plants for pasture, and all those which yield corn ; their 
structure is the most simple of the higher forms of vegetation. 
Their stems constitute so many protecting sheaths to the rapidly 
growing shoots, and are clothed with alternate leaves ; the inflo- 
rescence comprehends a small number of stamens and a single seed a 
enclosed in a thin pericarp; the floral leaves, or glumes, ac D 2 
sent in immense varieties in the different tribes, and form, wi 4 
the number of stamens, texture, and sexual relations, very! de 3 
tinctive characters by which the several genera have been forme ft 
into tribes or families. Endlicher divides the 234 jetted s 
which the order consisted when he wrote (which is now increa” 
to 291), into thirteen tribes, as follows :— : 
2, 3-flowered, lower) 16 genera, containini’ ier a : 
I. OnyzEa. Ps ng oret. on plea, and neuter, the pate — _ some 
lonly fertil J spec 
incindiog 
Lan Spikelets hermaphrodite, 1, 2, 3-) _ Containing 21 geneM® | sme 
wats cee {rowers ‘glumes equal, pales hard- | Zen Ge Maize ve ant 
ning, 
38 gen 
Spikelets ae en ten in- height fi trom aie uu ich rise 
ITI. PANICE. 
a i umes bortive ; | arborescen tree “ 
palewc ceo noyeeattg S ceepeume to the height ellie ‘3 iofty e 
\ cariopsis India, wi waite 
goose quill. 
