2 
CL VII. GRAMINEiE (Stapf). 
to the albumen, having the plumule and the descending radicle in 
front, and sometimes also a small anterior appendage opposite it 
(epiblast). — Herbs, annual, or perennial by means of rhizomes, 
rarely suffruticose, in Bambusece often tall shrubs or trees. Stems 
nearly always branched (often repeatedly and profusely) at the 
base, very rarely simple, thus forming fascicles or tufts of erect, 
ascending, prostrate or creeping, simple or ramified branches, which 
in the annual species are all more or less alike, having usually much 
shortened basal and lengthened upper internodes, terminating with 
an inflorescence (culms) or, in the perennial species, consist of culms 
and short, leafy, usually biennial shoots (innovation shoots) which 
grow into culms in the second season ; innovation shoots either 
piercing the subtending sheath at the base and growing up outside 
it, often as runners or stolons (extra vaginal), or inside the sheaths, 
which may or may not be thrown aside (intravaginal) ; culms 
jointed, internodes usually hollow, closed at the nodes, with or 
without an annular swelling above the nodes and within the sheaths 
(culm nodes) ; all the branches and the leaf-supported ramifications 
Avith a 2-keeled dorsal, usually hyaline, leaflet at the base. Leaves 
alternate, usually 2-ranked, rarely pseudo-opposite owing to the 
alternation of long and very short internodes, very often crowded 
in tufts or fan-shaped bunches at the base of the culms, or in some 
cases also of their upper branches ; in the perfect form (foliage 
leaves or “ leaves ” simply) consisting of sheath, ligule and blade ; 
sheaths with the margins free (open sheaths) or more or less connate 
(closed sheaths), clasping each other or the culm, finally often 
loosened or sometimes slipping from the culm and more or less 
spreading, of the same structure throughout, or with an annular 
succulent swelling at the base (sheath nodes), which becomes at 
length hardened and persistent, or partly shrinks, leaving a depressed, 
often dark-coloured annular mark ; ligules placed transversely at 
the inside at the junction of the sheath and the blade, consisting of 
a membrane or of a fringe of hairs, rarely altogether absent ; blades 
usually long and narrow, entire, parallel-nerved, rarely ovate, 
cordate or sagittate, usually passing more or less gradually into the 
sheath, rarely articulated with it or constricted at the base into a 
petiole, folded or convolute in the bud, and often folding or rolling- 
up in the mature state as they become dry, usually much reduced 
or quite suppressed in the lowest leaves which, in the perennial 
species, act as bud-scales, sometimes also in the upper leaves. In- 
florescence terminal, rarely terminal and lateral, built up of the 
variously arranged spikelets, panicled, racemose, capitate, simply 
or compoundly spicate, very rarely consisting of a single spikelet, 
nearly always ebracteate. Spikelets all alike or heteromorphous, 
differing in sex and (in co-relation with the sex) more or less also in 
the general structure, bisexual with all the flowers $ , or with £ and 
cL or 9 and $ flowers in the same spikelet, or unisexual (monoecious 
