714 GRAMINE^E 



the palet, with its back turned toward the rachella and often 

 enveloping the flower by its enfolded edges : at the base of the 

 flower between it and its glume are usually two very small hya- 

 line scales, called lodicules. Stamens 1-6, usually 3, with very 

 slender filaments and two- celled usually versatile anthers. Pis- 

 til with a one-celled one-ovuled ovary and one to three, usually 

 two styles with variously branched mostly plumose stigmas. 

 Embryo small, situated at the base of the seed and covered 

 only by the thin pericarp. Fruit a caryopsis, usually called a 

 grain, with copious mealy albumen. 



Suborder i PANICACE^ R. Br. 



Spikelets 1- or 2-flowered, when 2-flowered the upper fertile, 

 the lower staminate. Rachella articulated below the glumes or 

 the subtending involucre, not extending beyond the flower. 



Tribe i Andropogone^: Spikelets perfect or one staminate 

 or rudimentary, mostly silky. Flowering glumes and palet hya- 

 line, none of the glumes spiny. 



1 Imperata Spikelets in pairs both perfect: empty glumes clothed with 



long white silky hairs. 



Tribe ii Panice^e Spikelet of one perfect flower with a sta- 

 minate or neutral one below it, the latter often reduced to a single 

 palet; sometimes appearing as if one-flowered by the supression 

 of the lower glume and the palet of the neutral rlower. 



2 Paspalum Spikelets apparently 1-flowered, plano-convex, on one side 



of a flattened rachis, without an involucre. 



3 Panicum Spikelets 1^-2-flowered without an involucre, the lower 



usually minute. 



4 Chsetochloa Spikelets 2-flowered, with an involucre of bristles proceed- 



ing from the pedicels. 



Tribe hi Oryze^: Spikelets usually much compressed lat- 

 erally, one-flowered. Empty glumes two or more. Stamens of- 

 ten 6. 



5 Homalocenchrus Spikelets much flattened: glumes wanting: palet 



rigid. 



Suborder ii POACE.E R. Br. 



Spikelets not articulated below the glumes, one- to many- 

 flowered, the imperfect flowers if any usually uppermost. 



Tribe iv Phalaride^e Spikelets more or less laterally com- 

 pressed, 1-3-flowered. Glumes 5, the first 2 below the articula- 

 tion of the rachella the third and fourth very unlike the others ; 

 the fifth with a hermaphrodite flower. 



6 Phalaris Spikelets 3-flowered, the lateral reduced to a rudiment, the 



fertile coriaceous. 



7 anthoxanthom Spikelets 3-flowered, the lateral neutral, of a single 



