The most important part of the bamboo, from a botanical point of view, is the flower, which roughly resembles the flower of our common grasses. The flower of grass is inclosed in hard, scaly leaflets called glumes; it usually has three stamens and one seed-vessel. There may be only one flower inclosed in the glumes (as in foxtail grass), or more (as in wheat). The flowers of the bamboos, while on the whole conforming to the grass type, exhibit many small differences in different species. In some kinds, as in Arthrostylidium longiflorum, the inflorescence resembles a bunch of ears of wheat; in others, as in Bambusa vulgaris, the flowers are packed into round clusters; in others, as in Chusquea simpliciflora, they are in threes and fours, each flower hanging by a separate slender stalk. The seed generally resembles oats or wheat, but in some species it takes the form of a berry, not unlike the seed of our familiar pimpernels. In the species known as Molocanna, the fruit is exceptionally developed, often attaining the size of a largish pear. Some species flower and die down annually; others flower annually, but live on; as a rule the bamboo grows for many years without flowering, and then suddenly bursts into bloom. From the fact that the number of years between the sowing of the seed and the flowering of the plant varies, and that in some years nearly all the bamboos in a given district flower simultaneously, it would seem as if the blossoming does not take place at any prescribed age, but may occur at any period after the plants reach maturity when a favorable season supervenes. It used to be thought that after a general flowering of the bamboos throughout a district all the plants died, but this view proves to be incorrect. The flowering shoots usually die, and during the flowering the foliage almost entirely disappears, but the entire plant is not necessarily killed. The Chinese have a proverb that the bamboo produces seed most abundantly in years when the rice crop fails, and several curious cases of the truth of this saying have been recorded. According to General Munro, in 1812 the universal flowering in Orissa prevented a famine. Hundreds of people, he says, were on the watch day and night to secure the seeds as they fell from the branches. Another instance occurred in 1864, when there was a general flowering of the bamboo in the Soopa jungles, and very large numbers of persons came from the neighboring districts to collect the seeds.