504 - THE GRASS FAMILY. 
_ palea, is the real flower, consisting usually of 2 minute, almost 
microscopical scales called lodicules, of 3 (rarely 2 or 6) stamens, 
and of a l-celled, l-ovuled ovary, crowned by 2 more or less 
feathery styles. The name of flower, however, is here, as in 
other works, generally meant to include the flowering glume 
and palea. Fruit 1-seeded and seed-like, called a grain or cary- 
opsis, consisting of the real seed and pericarp, either free or 
adhering to the persistent palea, or enclosed in the more or less 
hardened flowering glume and palea, or in the outer glumes. 
Embryo small, at the base of a mealy albumen. 
Such is the general plan upon which the flowers of Grasses are 
arranged, but there are many variations which require to be carefully 
attended to in discriminating the genera of this most natural, but 
somewhat difficult family. When the spikelet contains but one flower, 
its flowering glume and inner palea appear often almost opposite to 
each other, like an inher pair of glumes within the outer empty ones. 
Sometimes there are three or even more outer, empty glumes, either 
passing gradually into the shape of the flowering ones, or one or two, 
very differently shaped (usually much smaller), are placed between the 
outer empty pair and the flowering one; or the axis of the spikelet 
terminates in one or more rudimentary, empty glumes. Occasionally 
one flower, either below or above the perfect one, has stamens only, and 
some exotic species are always moncecious or dicecious. Frequently 
the midrib of the flowering glumes alone, or of the intermediate empty 
‘ones alone, or of all the glumes, is prolonged into a bristle, sometimes 
very long, called an awn, and the awn is either terminal, proceeding 
from the point of the glume or from a notch at the top, or is inserted 
lower down, on its back, or at its very base. Sometimes the whole 
spikelet contains only two glumes, one empty, the other flowering, with 
or even without a palea, or is reduced to a single flowering glume and 
palea, and in a very few 1-flowered spikelets it may be doubtful whether 
the 2 inner scales should be considered as a glume and a palea, or as 2 
elumes without any palea. Many botanists restrict the name of glume 
to the outer empty pair, calling both the flowering glumes and their 
palea, paleas or glumellas, and giving the name of sterile florets to all 
other empty glumes in the spikelet, or even to a small prolongation of 
the axis which is often observable at the outer base of the palea of the 
terminal flowers. The leaves of some Grasses are described as convolute, 
that is, rolled inwards on the edges, but the character is often very 
deceptive in dry specimens, for in many species the leaves are perfectly 
flat when growing, but roll inwards in drying immediately on being 
gathered. 
Grasses are abundantly diffused over the whole world, from the 
utmost limits of phzenogamous vegetation towards the Poles or on 
alpine summits, to the burning plains of the Equator. In temperate 
regions they form the principal mass of the green carpeting of the soil, 
whilst in tropical regions some species (the Bamboos) attain the height a 
of tall trees. They supply us with one of the most important articles — 
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