134 
GRASSES. 
has two flowers, and the wheat three flowers within the same bracts , the interior 
valve of the corolla of the wheat is usually bearded. The filaments in the 
rye and wheat are expert, from which circumstance those grains are more ex 
posed to injury from heavy rains than plants whose filaments are shorter. In 
the whole of tne vegetable kingdom, though there are many plants of much 
greater brilliancy of appearance, there are none more important to man than the 
grass family. 
a. Linn£Eus, who was distinguished for the liveliness of his fancy no less than the 
clearness of his reasoning powers, seemed to delight in tracing analogies between 
plants and men : establishing among the former a kind of aristocracy, he called 
grasses the 'plebeians of the vegetable kingdom. To them, indeed, belong neither 
brilliancy of appearance nor delicacy of constitution ; numerous, humble, and rustic, 
and at the same time giving to man and beast the sustenance necessary to preserve 
life, the grasses may well be compared to the unassuming farmer and mechanic, to 
whom society is indebted for its existence and prosperity, far more tlian to the 
idle fop or blustering politician. 
1Y5. The grasses are supposed to include nearly one-sixth 
part of the whole vegetable world ; they cover the earth as with 
a green carpet, and furnish food for man and beast. Some of 
these, most valuable as furnishing food for cattle, are herds-grass 
{Phleum pratense) ; meadow-grass {Poa) ; orchard-grass {Dacty- 
lis) ; and oats. The Phleum pratense has a long cylindric spike 
or head, consisting of many minute flowers. Each valve of 
the calyx glume is flattened and obtuse, terminated by a very 
short bristle; within these two truncated valves is the corolla 
glume, consisting also of two awnless or simple valves. The 
Alopecurus^ or fox-tail grass^ resembles the herds-grass, but 
flowers earlier ; it bears a soft instead of a rough spike, and a co- 
rolla glume of but one valve, bearing an awn on the back. In 
the Poa^ or meadow-grass, of which there are many species, the 
flowers are in small heads called sjpikelets^ and have a general 
calyx glume including from three or five to forty flower glume& 
which are all consequently destitute of any thing more than the 
two-valved general calyx, and are without any proper calyz to 
each flower ; the flower is compressed so as to appear almost 
keeled, and is destitute of awns. If, with all these appearances, 
except a roundness and rigidity in the valves, they should grad- 
ually terminate in awns or bristles, the plant will be a Festuca 
(Fescue-grass) in place of a Poa. But if the plant, with the 
same appearance generally, should have the corolla glume blunt, 
and awned a very little below the point, it will then be a Bro- 
mus instead of a Festuca. The reed (Arundo) is distinguished by 
having three, five, or more woolly glumes in a common or rather 
long membraneous calyx. It has also broader leaves than almost 
any other grass, is nearly aquatic, and generally of gigantic 
Light in all the species. In wheat the flowers are collected 
into a spike of two rows, made up of spikelets or clusters, seated 
Importance uf the grass familj —a. What did Linnaeus call the grasses % — 175. Which are among 
(he Uiost valuable grasses for cattle 1 — Wh ch for the use of man ?--Phleum — Alopecvrus, Poa, tec 
