Var. alàta, Bailey. Culm very stiff, 1½–3° high, longer than the stiff leaves; spikes very large, oblong or conical, always pointed, usually all contiguous, green or sometimes becoming tawny; perigynium orbicular or orbicular-obovate, very abruptly contracted into a short beak which is prominent in the spike. (C. alata, Torr.)—Swales, Mass. to Ill., and southward; rare and uncharacteristic far inland.
Var. cumulàta, Bailey. Culm very stiff, 2–3° high, greatly exceeding the firm leaves; spikes 5–30, all aggregated or densely capitate, green, widely divergent, pointed above, very abruptly contracted or even truncate at base, very densely flowered; perigynium small, broad, very obscurely nerved, the points inconspicuous.—Dry grounds, Penn. to N. Eng., and northward; rare.
Var. fœ̀nea, Torr. Culm very stiff, longer than the leaves, 1–2° high; spikes 4–8, contiguous or separated, never densely aggregated, prominently contracted both above and below, very densely flowered, green, or often silvery-green. (C. fœnea, last ed., excl. vars.; not Willd.)—Near the sea-coast; frequent.
C. leporìna, L. Distinguished from C. straminea, var. brevior, as follows:—Usually lower; spikes rusty-brown, ovoid or oblong, erect or appressed, more or less contracted both above and below, contiguous in an interrupted head 1´ long or less; perigynium lance-ovate, thin, very narrowly margined, erect and appressed, obscurely nerved.—About Boston (W. Boott, Morong). (Adv. from Eu.)
[*] 12.—[+] 3. Cyperoídeæ.
133. C. sychnocéphala, Carey. Erect, 3–18´ high, leafy; head ½–1´ long; perigynium very slender, faintly nerved, 5–6 times longer than the exceedingly small achene, mostly a little longer than the sharp scale.—Glades, central N. Y. to Minn., and far westward; rare.
Order 129. GRAMÍNEÆ. (Grass Family.)
Grasses, with usually hollow stems (culms) closed at the joints, alternate 2-ranked leaves, their sheaths split or open on the side opposite the blade; the hypogynous flowers solitary in the axils of imbricated 2-ranked glumes, forming a 1–many-flowered spikelet; the lower glumes (1 or usually 2) empty, the succeeding flowering glumes enclosing each a somewhat smaller and usually thinner scale (called the palet) and 2 or 3 very minute hyaline scales (lodicules) at the base of the flower. Stamens 1–6, commonly 3; anthers versatile, 2-celled, the cells distinct. Styles mostly 2 or 2-parted; stigmas hairy or feathery. Ovary 1-celled, 1-ovuled, forming a seed-like grain (caryopsis) in fruit. Embryo small, on the outside and at the base of the floury albumen.—Roots fibrous. Sheath of the leaves usually more or less extended above the base of the blade into a scarious appendage (ligule). Spikelets panicled or spiked. Palet usually 2-nerved or 2-keeled, enclosed or partly covered by the glume. Grain sometimes free from, sometimes permanently adherent to, the palet.—A vast and most important family, as it furnishes the cereal grains, and the principal food of cattle, etc. The terms flowering glume and palet are now adopted in place of the outer and inner palets of previous editions, while for convenience the term flower is often retained for the flower proper together with the enclosing flowering glume. (See [Plates 7–15.])
Series A. Spikelets jointed upon the pedicel below the glumes, of one terminal perfect flower (sometimes a lower staminate or neutral flower in n. 5), or some or all of the 1-flowered spikelets unisexual in n. 10–12. Glumes 4 (rarely only 2 or 3).
Tribe I. PANICEÆ. Spikelets of one perfect flower, in spikes or panicles. Flowering glume awnless, in fruit more rigid than the empty glumes.