SEED-BEARING PLANTS 
495 
veined. The flowers are arranged in spikelets, and the 
spikelets in spikes (Fig. 379), racemes, or panicles 1 (Fig. 
380) . The leafy parts of the flower-clusters 
are modified as dry scales called glumes. 
When grain is thrashed the glumes consti- 
tute the so-called "chaff." There is no 
perianth. 
430. Palm Family (Palmaceae). The 
palms are mostly tropical and subtropical. 
With certain exceptions (e.g., Calamus rat- 
tan), the stem or caudex is normally un- 
branched, varies in height with the species, and 
in most species bears all the foliage near the 
tip (Figs. 381 and 382). Frequently the old 
leaves, or their petioles or bases only, re- 
main attached to the trunk. The leaves, 
though not morphologically compound, usu- 
ally have their blades cleft or divided as they 
mature. The flowers are complete, with three 
sepals and petals, three to six stamens, and 
pistil of three carpels. They are monoecious, 
dioecious, or perfect, according to the species. 
The flowers, intermingled with bracts, oc- f IG . 379 
cur on a more or less fleshy spadix, often Nazia racemosa 
i j i i i f ( L -) Kuntze. 
much branched, and enclosed in a large spathe. Terminal spike 
The inflorescence may be axial (lateral), or jJ Jg^J 
terminal. When terminal the plant usually (After Britton 
dies after the fruit has matured. 
1 A spike is "a form of simple inflorescence with the flowers sessile or 
nearly so upon a more or less elongated common axis." A panicle is "a 
loose, irregularly compound inflorescence with pedicellate flowers." A 
raceme is "a simple inflorescence of pediceled flowers upon a common, more 
or less elongated axis." 
