84 ME. 0. B. CLABKE ON INDIAN SPECIES OF CYPKRUS. 



indeed workable) characters. It would be very convenient to 

 split off more groups by definite characters, and it would still 

 more facilitate a satisfactory dealing with the genus if we could 

 dichotomize Eucyperus (as it here stands). This Benth. et Hook, 

 f., Gren. PI. hi. p. 1043, have endeavoured to do by admitting 

 Papyrus and Eucyperus as subgenera. This, I regret to say, 

 appears to me impossible to work with : the only distinction is 

 tbat the wing of the rhachilla is more prominent in Papyrus than 

 in Eucyperus. This is at best a poor and indefinite character ; 

 but, beyond that, the exceptions to it are so numerous (even after 

 rearranging many species in Boeckeler) that it is really little help 

 towards finding the place of a species. 



To enumerate but a few instances : — In C. glomeratus, Linn., 

 and C. eleusinoides, Kunth, the wing is well developed, yet these 

 species stand (and must stand) in Eucyperus. C lucidulus, Klein, 

 has an evident subsoluble wing, and has therefore been forced by 

 Boeckeler into Papyrus ; but its affinity is clearly with C. com- 

 pressus, where Hook, f . et T. Thorns, placed it. Boeckeler has 

 similarly divaricated G.jeminicus, Bottb., and G. usitatus, Burchell, 

 in attempting to preserve the character of the wing of the rha- 

 chilla as sectional. The character runs so irregularly, indeed, that 

 if the subgenus Papyrus is maintained (on its present character 

 in Benth. et Hook, f.) distinct from Eucyperus, the natural 

 affinity of species will be broken into at very numerous places ; 

 and the line between Papyrus and Eucyperus, " the degree of 

 development of the wing," will then be arbitrary, indefinable, and 

 useless to work with. It is an additional but superfluous argu- 

 ment to add that in many, as in C. teyetum, the development of 

 the wing varies very greatly in degree in the same species. Though, 

 therefore, I am unable to propose any better dichotomization of 

 Eucyperus than Benth. et Hook, f., and though I would most 

 willingly have bolstered it up if I could have discovered any prop- 

 ping subordinate characters, I here abandon it, and fall back on 

 a system of mere groups, as in Kunth or Boeckeler, and attempt 

 merely to improve these (as to the Indian species especially) in 

 detail. The series proceeds " generally," as in Boeckeler, from 

 the groups with an inconspicuous wing to those with the wing of 

 rhacheola conspicuous. By the removal of the series with per- 

 sistent glumes, deciduous spikelets, and by some simplifications, 

 I have considerably reduced the unwieldy number of groups in 

 Kunth and Boeckeler. This, however, may be a doubtful advan- 



