6 
BOTAL HOETICULTUEAL SOCIETY. 
rachis, but stretching forth long plume-like, deep purple stigmas 
to court the floating pollen. 
In Pharus scaler (H. B. K.), another tall broad-leaved grass, 
the spikelets stand by twos on the spike, a sessile female spikelet 
and a stalked male spikelet. 
In the fine forest-grasses of the genus Olyra, whereof some 
species, such as O. micrantha (H. B. K.), rise to 10 feet higli, 
and have lanceolate leaves above 3 inches broad, and a large 
terminal panicle with capillary branches like those of our Aira 
ccespitosa, it is the lower flowers that are male, with three large 
innate (not versatile) anthers, and the upper that are female, 
with two large stigmas, that are either dichotomously divided or 
clad with branched hairs, thus ex:posing a wider surface to the 
access of the pollen. And as tlie panicle is often pendulous, 
many of the male flowers, although placed lower down the axis, 
are actually suspended over the terminal female flowers. 
In the curious genus Pariana^ whose large polyandrous flowers 
look as if they might belong to a palm rather than a grass, the 
inflorescence is a terminal spike, with a nodose rachis, each node 
bearing a whorl of six flowers, viz. five male flowers including 
and hiding a solitary female flower. The male flowers contain each 
from fifteen to twenty-one stamens, and the large sagittate anthers 
put forth their tips beyond the paleae when quite young, but 
rarely burst until entirely emerged ; so that, although the first 
intention seems to have been to ensure the fertilization of the 
ovary while yet in the bud, the latter has really become accessi- 
ble to extraneous pollen by the time the anthers of its own whorl 
are matured. 
Gynerium sagittatum (Beauv.), the great Arrow-cane, clothes 
the beaches of the Amazon and springy hill-sides in the lower 
Andes with its graceful stems (20 or more feet high), that bear 
upwards a fan of distichous sword-like leaves, and are topped by 
an immense panicle of silver-and-purple flowers, which are truly 
dioicous. When the summer winds sweep up the Amazon, 
or the squalls of the rainy season burst upon it, the Arrow- 
canes bend like osiers, and intermingle their feathery heads, 
male and female ; while the wind itself must, at such times, 
aid in conveying the pollen to the female flowers. One com- 
prehends, after seeing this, how a dioicous grass could with dif- 
ficulty maintain itself in the still depths of the forests, w^here, 
in fact, only stray individuals of this very species rarely pene- 
trate, but do not multiply. 
