212 DR. M. T. MASTERS ON THE MORPHOLOGY 
distinct by Rottboell, who assigned to it the manuscript name 
Kyllinga*, a name which he subsequently transferred to a genus of 
Cyperacex on finding that he had been forestalled by Linnzus. 
Linneus took as the type of his genus a species which he called 
R. dichotomus, the only one, apparently, known to him when he 
established the genus, and which he considered at that time as 
identical with Schanus Capensis. Rottboell, in the works cited 
below, added several new species, which were adopted and others 
added in the following or 18th edition of the ‘Systema’ (1791). 
Great confusion exists in books, and still greater in herbaria, as 
to Linneus’ R. dichotomus, the species upon which the genus 
was established. Rottboell considered it as identical with his own 
plant, figured in his Descr. et Ie. tab. 1. fig. 1, and which is now 
known as Thamnochortus dichotomus, Br.t Linnzus’ description 
is so vague, that by its aid alone the plant intended could hardly 
be recognized ; it runs thus, * Gramen sspe sterile, quasi vivipa- 
rum, e foliis minutissimis aliquot pilis interstinctis.” ^ Linnzmus' 
own copy of the 12th edition of the ‘Systema,’ now preserved 
with his herbarium in the library of our Society, contains nume- 
rous manuscript notes in the author’s own handwriting, and, for- 
tunately for our present purpose, there is an annotation referring 
to R. dichotomus, and which I here transcribe, in the hope that it 
will definitely settle the synonymy of this much-disputed species : 
“ Thamnochortus fruticosus, Berg. Fl. Cap. 353. t. 5. f. 8 (1767). 
Differt a Scheno Capensi, que alia planta... . . " Hence the 
original R. dichotomus is no Restio at all, but a Thamnochortus, 
whose further synonymy I hope to unravel in a future commu- 
nication. The species subsequently added by Rottboell, Linnzus, 
and others are partly retained, partly distributed through the 
genera Calopsis, Elegia, Thamnochortus, Staberoha, Hypodiscus, 
&c., and which I hope to make the subjects of future communica- 
tions to the Society. For the purposes of this paper I adopt the 
genus as defined by Kuntht, which thus includes those dicecious 
Restiacez with persistent sheaths, flowers in spikelets, each pro- 
vided with a two-rowed perianth of six, or rarely four, unequal 
segments. In the male flowers, which are generally numerous, 
the anthers are one-celled; in the female spikelets the florets are 
rarely solitary, and if so, not strietly terminal. The fruit is a 
one-, two-, or, very rarely, three-celled dehiscent capsule. Among 
* Rottb. Program. 1772 ; ejusdem Deser. et Ic. 1773, p 
T Brown, Prod. 244 in adnot. of Kunth, Enum. iii. p. 433. n. 7. 
I Enum. Plant. iii. p. 382. 
