GRASSES OF OHIO 
257 
Phylum, Anthophyta, flowering plants. Seed plants of diverse habit and com¬ 
monly with showy flowers on the sporophyte, with closed carpels or carpel sets, 
with female gametophytes of eight or rarely sixteen, or a smaller number of cells, 
usually containing two, or rarely more, polar nuclei which conjugate with each 
other and with one of the two nonmotile sperms from the male gametophyte or 
pollengrain, which is deposited on a stigma and develops a long pollenttibe. As the 
result of this triple fusion a new tissue is produced of greater or less extent sur¬ 
rounding the developing embryo in the ovule. This peculiar endosperm is called 
the xeniophyte generation and it is the presence of this tissue, especially, in many 
grains of grasses that gives them their great food value. 
The grasses belong to the class Monocqtylae, or monocotyls, which 
may be defined as having the following characteristics: 
Sporophytes developing as herbs or sometimes as woody plants of large 
dimensions; embryo usually with one terminal cotyledon and a lateral plumule; 
stem with closed, usually scattered vascular bundles, without typical bark and 
annual rings of growth, rarely with secondary thickening; leaves mostly parallel- 
veined, sometimes netted-veined; flowers more commonly trimerous, the ideal 
being a trimerous, pentacyclic flower with united carpels. 
The Monocotyls are divided into four subclasses, the grasses falling 
into the subclass, Glumiflorae: 
Glumiflorae (Glume-flowered Monocotyls). Usually grass-like herbs or some¬ 
times woody plants with hypogynous, inconspicuous flowers. Carpels united; 
stigmas 3-1; perianth usually of 6-2 minute segments or bristles or entirely want¬ 
ing; inflorescence usually consisting of spikes or spikelets variously clustered; 
endosperm mealy, starchy or rarely sugary. 
The order of the Glumiflorae to which the grasses belong is com¬ 
monly called- Graminales and is characterized by its unilocular ovulary 
containing one anatropous, erect or ascending ovule. 
There are two families of Graminales, Cyperaceae or Sedges and 
Graminaccae or Grasses. In general the sedges constitute the lower and 
less specialized group. 
Graminaccae. Grass Family 
Highly specialized, perennial, geophilous herbs or annuals, or sometimes woody 
plants, with hollow or occasionally solid stems, having prominent internodes, the 
nodes closed. Leaves 2-ranked, with sheaths, the sheaths usually split to the base; 
upper end of the sheath usually with one or two ligules; sometimes with a short 
petiole between the sheath and the blade, in which a cleavage plane is developed. 
Inflorescence a panicle, raceme, or spike, composed of spikelets. Spikelets and 
flowers with 2-ranked glumes, each spikelet normally with two empty glumes at 
its base and each flower normally with two flowering glumes, the outer one called 
the lemma, the inner the palet. Flowers bisporangiate or monosporangiate, mone- 
cious or diecious with all intermediate gradations, often completely vestigial. 
Perianth of 3 usually 2 small bracts called lodicules which probably represent a 
corolla or inner perianth cycle; stamens of the andrecium 6, or usually 3, some¬ 
times reduced to 2 or 1 ; anthers versatile, with 4 microsporangia; gynecium highly 
specialized, consisting of 3 united carpels forming a unilocular ovulary with one 
ovule; stigmas 3, 2 or 1, usually 2, hairy or plumose. Fruit a dry seed-like grain 
(caryopsis), or in the lower forms sometimes fleshy; endosperm .starchy or rarely 
sugary. 
