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 1-celled, 1-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 inner 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 monoecious or dioecious. 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 

 glumes 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 phasnogamous 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 

 of tall trees. They supply us with one of the most important articles 



