MR. G. BENTHAM ON GRAMINEZ, 27 
The long styles, moreover, would place the majority of the sub- 
tribe Sesleriez, for instance, among Panicaces, when all their 
other characters are those of Poacese; and the species are very 
numerous in which, from the intermediate length of the styles, 
or from both the lower smooth part and the stigmatie portion, 
or the lower part alone, being described as styles, they are 
differently characterized as long or short by different writers. 
Fournier rejects both Brown's and Fries's primary divisions, 
but proposes a new one founded on the position of the lowest 
glume of the spikelet, next to the main axis in Chloridez and 
Hordeaceg, and averted from it or external in other tribes. But, 
in the first place, this relative position eannot well be ascertained 
in loosely paniculate Gramines, where there is so frequently a 
slight, almost imperceptible torsion of the pedicel, and, in the 
next place, in one-flowered spikelets it is often uncertain which 
is to be regarded as the lowest glume. The total number of 
glumes in the tribe Panicew, for instance, is variable, according 
to the genus or section, two, three, or four; the lowest in 
Reimaria, and in a few species of Paspalum, corresponds to the 
sccond in the majority of Paspala and a few allied genera, and to 
the third in Panicum. All these genera are included by Fournier, 
as by all others, in one and the same tribe; and if so, are we to 
regard as the outer glume the small outer one of Panicum, called 
by some an extra bract, and an imaginary one in Paspalum and 
its allies, or the outer one of Paspalum, which is second in Pani- 
cum ? 2 in one and the same genus, the relative position of 
the outer glume and the main axis is not always constant, as, for 
instance, in Paspalum, in Nees's section Digitarie (Emprosthion, 
Doell, Anastrophus, Schlecht.), the outer glume and the flowering 
one above it are external, whilst in the majority of the genus 
they are turned iowards the central rib of the main axis, and 
yet the two groups are not distinguished by Fournier even as 
sections, 
Another character much insisted on of late years for tribual 
distinction is still more uncertain, the adherence of the ripe grain 
or caryopsis to the palea, as in Festuca, Bromus, &c. This is 
usually very conspicuous in the dry state, “although even then 
the grain is often only closely embraced by the palea, and when 
moistened the adherence very generally disappears. The union 
of the two is perhaps never truly organic, and in hot water I 
have always found them readily separable without any tearing. 
