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the iuner side, there is usually a small, thin, membranous organ, called. 
the ligule or tongue. This is sometimes half an inch long, more com- 
monly only two or three lines, and sometimes it is almost absent or re- | 
duced to a short ring, but its length and size are very constant in the 
same species. This ligule represents the stipules which occur at the 
base of the leaves in many of the higher plants. The blade or lamina 
is the expanded part of the leaf, but is usually called by the general 
name leaf. In the majority of grasses the leaf is long and narrow; that 
is, many times longer than wide. There is one central nerve, called the 
midnerve or midrib, extending to the point of the leaf, with numerous 
finer nerves on each side running paralle! to it, and not connected by 
conspicuous transverse nerves nor giving off branches. These leaves are 
in some species rough, in others smooth, hairy, or downy, etc. The agri- 
cultural value of a grass depends mainly upon the quantity, quality, 
size, and nutritive properties of the leaves. 
(4) The flowers of the grasses are generally at the end of the stem or 
the side branches, sometimes very few in humber, sometimes in great 
abundance, sometimes in a close spike, and sometimes in a panicle, with 
_ many spreading branches or rays. The flowers may be single on the 
branches or on the pedicels, or they may be variously clustered. In 
the common redtop (Agrostis alba or A. vulgaris) there is a single flower 
at the end of each of the smal] branchlets of the panicle. Hach of these 
flowers is inclosed by a pair of small leaf-like scales or chaff, called the 
outer or empty glumes. The flower consists of (1) the essential organs 
and (2) the envelopes. The essential organs are the stamens and pistils, 
which may readily be seen when the grass isin bloom. The stamens, ~ 
‘of which there are usually three in each flower, consist of the anther and 
filament, the anther being the small organ which contains the pollen or » 
dust which fertilizes the pistil or female organ, and the filament being 
the thread-like stem on which the anther is borne. : 
The pistil is the central organ of the flower, and consists of three 
parts; the ovary, the style, and the stigmas. In most grasses the style 
is divided into two branches. The stigmas are the delicate organs, 
usually of a plumose form, at the extremities of these branches, which 
receive the pollen for the fertilization of the flower; and the ovary is 
that part at the base which contains the future seed. 
The envelopes of the flower are usually two leaf-like scales or husks, 
inclosing between them the stamens and pistil. These scales face each 
other, one being a very little higher on the axis than the other, and also 
usually smaller and more delicate in texture. This smaller scale is 
called the palet; the other larger and usually coarser one the flowering 
glume; its edges generally overlap and partly inclose the palet. 
The flower constituted as above described, together with the pair of 
outer or empty glumes at the base, form what is called a spikelet. In 
many-cases, however, there are two, three, or more flowers, sometimes — 
even ten to twenty, in one spikelet. in which case they are arranged 
