MANUAL OF THE GRASSES OF THE WEST INDIES 9) 
flower together constituting the floret; stamens 1 to 6, usually 3, 
with very delicate filaments and 2-celled anthers; pistil 1, with a 
1-celled 1-ovuled ovary, 2 (rarely 1 or 8) styles, and usually plumose 
stigmas; fruit a caryopsis with starchy endosperm and a small embryo 
at the base on the side opposite the hilum. 
Herbs, or rarely woody plants, with hollow or solid stems (culms) 
closed at the nodes, and 2-ranked usually parallel-veined leaves, 
these consisting of two parts, the sheath, enveloping the culm, its 
margins overlapping or sometimes grown together, and the blade, 
usually flat; between the two on the inside, a membranaceous hyaline 
or hairy appendage (the ligule). 
The spikelets are almost always aggregated in spikes or panicles at 
the ends of the main culms or branches. The perianth is usually 
represented by 2 (rarely 3) small hyaline scales (the lodicules) at the 
base of the flower inside the lemma and palea. The grain or caryopsis 
(the single seed and the adherent pericarp) may be free, as in wheat, 
or permanently enclosed in the lemma and palea, as in the oat. 
Rarely the seed is free from the pericarp, as in species of Sporobolus 
and EHleusine. The culms of bamboos are woody, as are also those of 
a few genera, such as Olyra and Lasiacis, belonging to other tribes. 
The culms are solid in the tribes Tripsaceae and Andropogoneae and 
in several other groups. 
The parts of the spikelet may be modified in various ways. The 
first glume, and more rarely also the second, may be wanting. The 
lemmas may contain no flower, or even no palea, or may be reduced 
or rudimentary. 
The division of the family into two subfamilies is somewhat 
artificial. The tribes Zoysieae, Oryzeae, Zizanieae, and especially 
Phalarideae, donot fall definitely into either of the recognized 
subfamilies. ‘They are placed as indicated largely for convenience. 
The anomalous genus Streptochaeta cannot as yet be assigned to any 
established tribe. 
DESCRIPTIONS OF THE SUBFAMILIES AND KEYS TO THE 
TRIBES 
SUBFAMILY 1. FESTUCOIDEAE 
Spikelets, 1- to many-flowered, the reduced florets, if any, above 
the perfect florets (except in Phalarideae; sterile lemmas below as 
well as above in Bambuseae and Uniola); articulation usually above 
the glumes; spikelets usually more or less laterally compressed. 
Key to the Tribes of Festucoideae 
Plants woody (scarcely so in Newrolepis), the culms perennial. 
1. BAMBUSEAE (p. 6). 
Plants herbaceous (except in Arundo), the culms annual. 
SINTON) SS Se ee pa ele A Ole ce eR Pee Ot ea mee, ee STREPTOCHAETA (p. 28). 
Stigmas 2 
Spikelets with 2 sterile lemmas unlike and below the fertile lemma; no sterile 
ormrudimentary -floret, abovel.-2.. ee 8. PHALARIDEAE (roy 12) 
Spikelets without sterile lemmas below the fertile floret (or these rarely 
present and like the fertile ones). 
Spikelets unisexual, falling entire, i-flowered, terete or nearly 
1 Tani (p. 10). 
