Alismacese is the water-plantain family, a natural order of endogenous plants, the members of which are herbaceous, annual or perennial; with petiolate leaves sheathing at the base, hermaphrodite (rarely unisexual) flowers, disposed in spikes, panicles, or racemes. They are floating or marsh plants, and many have edible fleshy rhizomes, They are found in all countries, but especially in Europe and North America, where their rather brilliant flowers adorn the pools and streams. The principal genera are Alisma (water-plaintain) and Sagittaria (arrow-head). Research Alismaceae
Aphis is a genus of insects (called plant-lice) of the order Hemiptera, the type of the family Aphides. The species are very numerous and destructive. The Aphis rosae lives on the rose; the Aphis fabae on the bean; the Aphis humuli is injurious to the hop, the Aphis granaria to cereals, the Aphis lanigera or woolly aphis equally so to apple-trees. The aphides are furnished with an inflected beak, and feelers longer than the thorax. In the same species some individuals have four erect wings and others are entirely without wings. The feet are of the ambulatory kind, and the abdomen usually ends in two horn-like tubes, from which is ejected the substance called honey-dew, a favourite food of ants. The aphides illustrate parthenogenesis; hermaphrodite forms produced from eggs produce viviparous wingless forms, which again produce others like themselves, and thus multiply during summer, one individual giving rise to millions. Winged sexual forms appear late in autumn, the females of which, being impregnated by the males, produce eggs. Research Aphis
Balauus ('acorn-shells'), is a genus of sessile cirripedes, of the family Balanidae, of which colonies are to be found on rocks at low water, on timbers, crustaceans, shells of molluscs, etc. They differ from the barnacles in having a symmetrical shell, and being destitute of a flexible stalk. The shell consists of six plates, with an operculum of four valves. They pass through a larval state in which they are not fixed, moving by means of swimming feet which disappear in the final state. All the Balanidae are hermaphrodite. A South American species (Balanus psittacus) is eaten on the coast of Chill, the Balanus tintinnabulum by the Chinese. The old Roman epicures esteemed the larger species. Research Balanus
The earthworm (Lumbrlcusterrestris) is a genus of common worms, of the natural order Oligochaeta, belonging to the abranchiate (having no branchiae, or external respiratory organs) section of the class Annelida. They have a long, cylindrical body, divided by transverse furrows into numerous rings. The mouth is destitute of teeth, and they have no eyes, tentacles, or cirrhi. They are hermaphrodite. The common earthworm attains nearly 30 cm in length. It subsists on roots, woody fibres, animal matter, etc. It moves by the contractions of successive parts of the body aided by a double row of bristles. They are of great service to the agriculturist by loosening the soil and increasing its depth. This is chiefly the result of their mode of nourishment, since they deposit the soil they have swallowed, after digestion, in heaps called worm castings which bring up rich fine soil to the surface, gradually covering the upper layer sometimes to the extent of several inches. Research Earthworm
Enneandria is the ninth class of the Linnaean system of plants, comprehending such plants as have hermaphrodite flowers with nine stamens. Research Enneandria
Good-King-Henry (Chenopodium Bonus-Henricus) is an erect or ascending perennial plant of the natural family Chenopodiaceae found throughout western and northern Europe in nitrogen-rich areas. It grows to a height of 80 cm and bears triangular leaves with wavy margins and prominent lobes at the base. The flowers are very small, greenish, usually hermaphrodite and are borne together on a long tapering spike. Research Good-King-Henry
Grass (Graminaceae) is an extensive family of endogenous plants comprising about 250 genera and 4500 species. The roots are fibrous; the stem is usually cylindrical and jointed varying length from a few centimetres to 30 metres in the case of the bamboo, (in the sugar-cane the stem is solid, but porous), and coated with silex; leaves, one to each node or joint, with a sheathing petiole; spikelets terminal, panicled, racemose, or spiked; flowers hermaphrodite or polygamous, destitute of true calyx or corolla, surrounded by a double set of bracts, the outer constituting the glumes, the inner the paleoe; stamens hypogynous, three or six; filaments long and flaccid; anthers versatile; ovary solitary, simple, with two (rarely three) styles, one-celled, with a single ovule; fruit known as a caryopsis, the seed and the pericarp being inseparable from each other.. The family includes many of the most valuable pasture-plants, all those which yield corn and the sugar-cane. The nutritious herbage and farinaceous seed furnished by many of them render them of incalculable importance, while the stems and leaves are useful for various textile and other purposes.
The more important divisions of the natural order of grasses are: (1) Panicaceoe, including the Paniceoe (millet, fundi, Guinea grass); the Andropogoneoe (sugar-cane, dhurra, lemon-grass) ; the Rottboellieoe (gama-grass); etc. (2) Phalarideoe (maize, Job's tears, canary-grass, foxtail-grass, soft-grass, Timothy grass). (3) Poaceoe, including the Oryzeoe (rice); Stipeoe (feather-grass, esparto); Agrosteoe (bent-grass); Aveneoe (oats, vernal grass); Festuceoe (fescue, meadow-grass, manna-grass, teff, cock's-foot grass, tussac grass, dog's-tail grass); Bambtiseoe (bamboo); Hordeoe (wheat, barley, rye, spelt, rye-grass, lyme-grass).
In its popular use the term grasses is chiefly applied to the pasture grasses as distinct from the cereals, etc. but it is also applied to some herbs, which are not in any strict sense grasses at all, e.g. rib-grass, scurvy and whitlow grass. After the culture of herbage and forage plants became an important branch of husbandry, it became customary to call the clovers, trefoils, sainfoin, and other flowering plants grown as fodder, artificial grasses, by way of distinction from the grasses proper, which were termed natural grasses. Of the pasture grasses, some thrive in meadows, others in marshes, on upland fields, or on bleak hills, and they by no means grow indiscriminately. Indeed the species of grass will often indicate the quality of the soil; thus, Holcus, Dactylis, and Bromus are found on sterile land, Festuca and Alopecurus on a better soil, Poa and Cynosurus are only found in the best pasture land. Research Grass
An hermaphrodite is an animal in which the characteristics of both sexes are either really or apparently combined, especially an animal having the parts of generation both of male and female, so that reproduction can take place without the union of two individuals. Hermaphrodites are divided into true and spurious, the first exhibiting a real combination of the characteristics of the two sexes; while in the second the combination is only apparent. The animals in which the organs of the two sexes are normally combined in the same individual are confined to the invertebrate division of the animal kingdom, as for example certain groups of the inferior worms, molluscs, barnacles, etc. Research Hermaphrodite
The Phylum phoronida are small marine gregarious zooids each enclosed in a membranous tube. They are triploblastic coelomate animals with a u shaped gut. Both the mouth and the anus are surrounded by a horseshoe-shaped ridge bearing numerous tentacles. The animals are hermaphrodite. Research Phylum phoronida
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Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research Alismaceae
