The whole group of flowers borne by any one haulm is generally called the ear or panicle. The ear in its turn consists of several bodies called spikelets. The appearance of the ear varies greatly in different grasses (Figs. 102 to 110) according as the stalks of the spikelets are long and spread outwards from the haulm, as in the meadow-grasses (Fig. 103), oats (Figs. 99 and 108), fescues (Fig. 102), and others; short, as in the foxtails (Figs. 104 and 105), timothy (Fig. 106), and sweet vernal grass (Fig. 110); or absent altogether, as in the wheat, barley, rye, rye grasses (Fig. 109), and couch grass. A single spikelet of a grass is shown diagrammatically in Fig. 100. At the bottom are two boat-shaped bracts called glumes (g, g), which almost or entirely cover the spikelet before it opens. When the glumes have been removed a few flowers remain. Each one is protected by two leaves called pales: outer (p₁) and inner (p₂) respectively. The flower (B), as a rule, has three stamens, the anthers being borne on long filaments and dangling out to the wind (Fig. 101), and a pistil with two branching feathery stigmas. In many grasses the outer pale bears a bristle called an awn, well seen in “bearded” wheat, barley, and upright brome grass. Fig. 101, A, represents a single spikelet of meadow fescue, with two [Pg 131] open flowers. The outer pales of this grass are not awned. Fig. 101, B, shows a single flower of the same grass from which the outer pale has been removed. The two little scales seen in front of the ovary (and at e in Fig. 100) possibly represent all that is left of a perianth (p. 121). Fertilisation.—By the time the flowers have opened, the haulm has usually grown so tall that they are lifted well above the leaves. The stamens hang their anthers loosely out to the wind, and, as the slender haulm sways in the breeze, the pollen is readily detached and carried to other flowers, perhaps miles away. It is in order to catch the wind-borne pollen-grains that the stigmas of grasses are branched and feathery. A great waste of pollen is obviously entailed by this method. But on the other hand it must be remembered that insect-pollinated flowers have to pay for their privileges by storing nectar in cunningly hidden pockets, and by advertisement-expenses, all of which the grasses avoid. Fig. 101.—Meadow Fescue. A, spikelet with two open flowers (× 1½); B, a flower from which the outer pale has been removed (× 6).