GRAMINEAE. A large order of annuals or perennials, usually herbaceous, caespitose, rarely suffrutescent or arborescent. Flowers rarely diclinous monoecious, or dioecious, sometimes polygamous; spikelets in terminal spikes, racemes or panicles, usually composed of two flowers (empty), glumes inclosing or subtending one or more, sessile or stalked, normally flower-bearing (but sometimes also empty) glumes, which are distichously arranged on a slender rachis (rachilla); flowering glumes boat-shaped, inclosing the flower and a flat, often two-nerved, scale (palea); perianth of two (rarely none, or three or more) minute scales; stamens three (rarely one, two, six, or more), with capillary filaments and two-celled pendulous anthers. Leaves alternate, distichous, springing from the nodes; petiole dilated, convolute, sheathing the stem; margins free, or very rarely more or less united; blade entire, usually narrow-linear, sometimes oblong or oval; margins very often scabrid; nerves parallel; stipule axillary, adnate by its dorsal face to the sheath, and produced as a membranous tongue (ligule). The order is widely distributed over the world. "Gramineae contain in their herbage, and especially in their seeds, nutritious principles, which entitle them to the first rank among plants useful to man, and which are of the greatest importance in an economic and political point of view. The Cerealia are: Wheat (Triticum sativum), Rye (Secale cereale), Barley (Hordeum vulgare, distichum, &c.), Oats (Avena sativa), all cultivated by the Caucasian race in the Northern and temperate regions. Rice (Oryza sativa) and Millet (Panicum miliaceum) originated amongst the Asiatic races. The Sugar-cane (Saccharum officinarum) is, in all probability, a native of tropical Asia; it has been cultivated from very ancient times in the East Indies. A considerable number of Gramineae are medicinal, viz., Triticum repens, glaucum, junceum, Cynodon Dactylon, Andropogon bicornis, Arundo Donax, Calama-grostis, &c." (Decaisne and Le Maout). This order like-wise furnishes numerous ornamental garden plants, some of the most striking of which are Arundinaria falcata, Metake, Arundo Donax (the Provence Cane), Arundo mauritanica, Bambusa arundinacea, Gynerium argenteum, Panicum plicatum, Phalaris arundinacea, &c.