MR. G. BENTHAM ON GRAMINE X. 41 
connected by intermediate forms, and several of them would pro- 
bably be modified, and may hereafter be much improved, by a 
closer study of species than I have at present been able to bestow 
upon them. 
(1) Digitaria. Spikelets usually small and in alternate pairs or 
clusters along one side of the simple spike-like branches of the 
panicle; those of each pair or cluster unequally pedicellate, or 
one of them almost sessile, and the lowest glume often very 
minute or sometimes quite deficient. This section was proposed 
as a distinet genus in Walter's * Flora Carolinensis? under the 
name of Syntherisma, and by Richard, in Persoon's “Synopsis; 
under that of Digitaria, and is still maintained as such by many 
botanists. It was founded originally on the cosmopolitan weed 
Panicum sanyuinale, Linn., in which the spike-like branches of 
the panicle are clustered at the end of the peduncle like those of 
Cynodon and some other Chloride. There are now, however, 
nearly forty species to be included in the group, in many of which 
the spikes or branches are distant along the peduncle, as in 
Sehedonnardus, Gymnopogon, Leptochloa, &c., among Chloride. 
From this tribethe structure of the pedicellate spikelets and their 
articulation always keep them perfectly distinct; but there is à 
series of small-flowered species, including the Australian and 
Asiatic P. parviflorum, Br., P. tenuiflorum, Br. (Paspalum brevi- 
foliun, Flügge), and Paspalum minutiflorum, Steud., and two or 
three from South Africa, which have been almost equally well 
placed by some in Paspalum, by others in Panicum. As in some 
species allied to P, sanguinale, and even in some varieties of 
P. sanguinale itself, the minute outer glume is frequently abso- 
lutely deficient. The more pedicellate spikelets and the occa- 
sional, however rare, appearance of the outer glume may justify 
the placing these species rather in Panicum than in Paspalum, to 
which I referred them in the ‘Flora Australiensis.? 2, platy- 
carphum, Trin., from Bonin Island, with all the characters of true 
Digitaria, is remarkable for the dilated membranous rhachis of 
the spike-like branches as in the section Ceresia of Paspalum. 
(2) Trichachne. In this section, distinguished as a genus under 
that name by Nees and others, the branches of the panicle are 
simple as in Digitaria, but usually few, loose, scattered along the 
peduncle, and erect. The glumes are all, or the second ones 
alone, ciliate or clothed with soft hairs as in the section Zricho- 
lena ; and the fruiting glume is not much hardened. The species 
