GRAMINA, GRASSES; one of the seven tribes or natural families, into which all vegetables are distributed by Linnaeus in his Philosophia Botanica. They are defined to be plants which have very simple leaves, a jointed stem, a husky calix termed gluma, and a single seed. This description includes the several sorts of corn as well as grasses. In Tournefort they constitute a part of the fifteenth class, termed apetalis; and in Linnaeus's sexual method, they are mostly contained in the second order of the third class, called triandria digna.
This numerous and natural family of the grasses, has engaged the attention and researches of several eminent botanists. The principal of these are, Ray, Monti, Micheli, and Linnaeus.
M. Monti, in his Catalogus stirpium agri Bononiensis, graminia ac hujusmodi assinia complectens, printed at Bononia in 1719, divides the grasses, from the dif-