s 



w 



216 DR. M. T. MASTERS OS SOVTH-AFlilCAN BESTIACEJE. 



racter of Elegia, and to place in Kunth's genus Dovea the 

 species with a three-celled dehiscent capsule. By so doing I have, 

 I believe, strengthened the characters of both. As now consti- 

 tuted, the essential characters of Elegia reside in the deciduous 

 sheaths, the loosely paniculated male inflorescence, and the tri- 

 angular or compressed indehiscent fruit. (See E. ? squamosay 

 E.? ffrandis, and E.? Neesii for further remarks on this genus.) 



DOYEA. 



One of the genera established by Kunth (in his * Enumeratio/ 

 vol. iii, p. 457, 1841), upon female plants only. The male plants 

 which, I consider, belong to this genus are described under the 

 heads of their respective species ; they do not differ in any mate- 

 rial points from the male plants of Mlegia. On the other hand, 

 the female flowers have a trilocular dehiscent fruit ; so that Dovea 

 stands intermediate between Hestio and Elegiciy having the habit 

 and inflorescence of the latter, as far as regards the male plant, 

 while its fruit is precisely like that of the second or tricarpellary 

 section of the genus Hestio. 



AsKiniOSPKRMA. 



A little-known genus, established by Steudel, on a female 

 plant of Drege's, n. 2510. It has a many-flowered female spikelet, 

 trilocular dehiscent fruit, and deciduous sheaths. 



Hvponiscus. 



In Lindley's *]N"atural System of Botany,' ed. 2, 1836, p. 450, 

 Nees von Esenbeck proposed the adoption and gave the cha- 

 racters of this genus, and also of one called Leuco^loeiis *. Prior 

 to this, in the Linnsea, v. p. 665, he had formed a genus which he 

 called Le])idanthus, Later (1841) Kunth, En. iii. p. 448, described 

 a genus under the name of BoeckTiia. Endlieher (Gen. Planta- 

 rum, p. 121) reduced Ilypodiseus and LeucapJoeus to sections of 

 Willdenovia, probably without having examined the plants, 



Lepidanthus was described from the male plants only; and the 

 anthers were incorrectly described as bilocular j it has therefore 

 been considered to be, as its author said, " genus vix notum, 

 summopere dubium." 



The examination of numerous specimens of these plants, espe- 

 cially of the authentic types of Nees, in Dr. Sender's herbarium, 



* Oi% more properly, Lcucoplocus, which is the version in Nees\s manu- 

 script. ' 



