26 MR. G. BENTHAM ON GRAMINEZ, 
imperfection is in the lower flowers of the spikelet ; and Poacee, 
in which the tendeney is in the opposite direction. This indica- 
tion of the principle kept in view is too indefinite to serve asa 
practical character; but,combining it with that proposed by Munro 
of the articulation in the axis of the spikelet being below the 
spikelet itself (in the pedicel) in Panicacex, and above the lowest 
glume or none in Poaces, the exceptional forms are reduced 
to the lowest possible figure. This primary division, although 
taeitly approved of by many partial agrostologists, has not been 
generally adopted in systematic works, and many attempts have 
been made to divide the Order according to more positive cha- 
racters, but as yet with but little success. 
Kunth entirely gave up Brown's primary groups and divided 
the Order into thirteen tribes, many of which were natural, 
fairly defined by a combination of characters, and have been very 
generally adopted. Others have been objected to on various 
grounds. He attached too much importance to such characters 
as the separation of the sexes or the inerease in the number of 
stamens, which are exceptional in different groups rather than 
tribual distinctions ; in the general arrangement, his removal of 
the Andropogones to a distance from the Panicez is disapproved 
of ; and his describing flowers as actually existing when only theo- 
retically imagined is sometimes misleading. Nees generally 
adopted Kunth’s tribes, but improved the circumscription of 
some of them, and added two or three small ones. Trinius never 
completed his revised arrangement of the Order. Since the time, 
however, of these great agrostologists, systems have been sketched 
out which require a few words of notice. 
Fries, followed by Andersson, proposed for a primary division 
of Gramine that into Clisanthee, with the flower (i.e. the 
flowering glume and palea) closed and the elongated styles pro- 
truding at the apex, and Huryanthee, with the glume and palea 
open at the time of flowering and the short styles protruding 
laterally. This division is, however, practically useless, except 
perhaps for the limited number of species that can be observed 
in a living state. The flowers of most species open only for a 
very short time, and in dried specimens are almost always closed. 
The styles, again, are in many cases so exceedingly slender and 
fugacious as to be very difficult to observe in dried specimens, 
except in the bud, when they have not yet attained their full 
development, or after fertilization, when they are withering away. 
