In grasses the spikelets form the ultimate divisions of a type of branched raceme often vaguely described as a panicle. It is very difficult to define a grass panicle, but the features which give it its characteristic appearance are, firstly, the absence of axillant leaves, and, secondly, the abbreviation of the basal internodes of the branches, associated with precocious development of lateral axes; this second factor results in a confused crowding of branches of different orders. The lowest of the secondary branches may arise at the very base of the primary branch, and may, again, have a tertiary branch at its base, so that three branches, arising apparently as a triplet, may yet be, in reality, of three different orders. Owing to this precocious branching, the secondary and later axes may form a pseudo-half-whorl at each node, these half-whorls alternating along the primary axis. Examples of secondary and tertiary axes arising at the same node, and thus giving ‘twinning’ of branches of different orders, may be seen in Fig. 54, A1 and A2 (Briza media L.). The hair-like lateral axes, at the ends of which the spikelets dance in the slightest breeze, have earned for this grass such dialect names as Earthquakes and Doddering Jockies. In some Gramineae, for instance, the Fescues, the panicles are one-sided; for though the primary branches stand alternately to right and left, they do not lie in one plane, as one would expect of branches axillary to distichous leaves, but their planes meet at an angle which is less than 180°, so that they all stand out to one side of the axis.