MR. G. BENTHAM ON GRAMINER. 58 
and Zea; and the hardened fruit-case is formed partly only by 
the outer glume, and partly also by the broad thiekened and 
hardened internode of the rhachis. 
7. EucnrzsNa, Schrad. (Reana, Brign.), has, like Zea, the ter- 
minal male inflorescence paniculate with numerous spikelets, and 
the female spikes in the lower axils wrapped up in broad bracts, 
from which are protruded the long filiform styles; but, as in the 
preceding genera, the female spikelets are within each bract 
superposed in a single row on the articulate rhachis of the single 
spike. The affinity to Zea appears to be recognized in the 
country ; for specimens have been received from Schaffner pur- 
porting to be known as “ wild maize." 
8. Zea, Linn. (Mays, Gertn.) —This most important, widely 
diffused, and most striking grass is only known in a cultivated 
state, or perhaps as an escape from cultivation. With most of the 
general characters of the tribe to which it gives its name, it 
is exceptional not only in that tribe, but in the whole Order, 
by the manner in which its numerous female spikelets are densely 
packed in several vertical rows round a central spongy or corky 
axis. How far this arrangement may have gradually arisen after 
so many centuries of cultivation can only be a matter of conjec- 
ture. Its gradual progress cannot be traced through the nume- 
rous cultivated varieties, many of them described as species in 
Bonafous's splendidly illustrated monograph ; and the idea that 
some of them are wild indigenous forms must be traced to the 
insufficiency of the observations recorded by travellers. 
Tribe III. Onxzrex. 
This tribe, as originally constituted, was loosely characterized, 
chiefly by uniflorous spikelets and stamens more than three—a 
character more or less dispersed through various different tribes ; 
and several of the genera included in it by Kunth have since been 
rejected. The close affinity of Oryzez and Phalarex has also been 
recognized, though the limits of the latter tribe also have been very 
unsettled. In the ‘ Flora Australiensis ? I had united the two as 
an intermediate tribe, connecting, as it were, the two great primary 
series of Panicacez and Poacex; but upon thewhole it seems better 
to separate them as tribes technically distinct, but representative 
of each other in the two great series. The essential character of 
both resides in having the scale immediately under the single ter- 
minal perfect flower keeled or 1-nerved like the glumes, so as to 
