56 MR. G. BENTHAM ON GRAMINE Z. 
Indian semiaguatic species nearly allied to Zizania, but quite 
distinet in its hermaphrodite flowers and other characters. 
6. Oryza, Linn. (Padia, Zoll. and Mor.), an Asiatic genus, of 
which the typical species, the well-known Rice, appears to be 
really indigenous in Australia as well as in East India; but it 
has been so much cultivated from time immemorial, that it is now 
found apparently wild in various parts of Africa and America. 
It has produced a large number of different forms, nearly twenty 
of which have been published as substantive species, all of which, 
or nearly all, are reduced by others to varieties of O. sativa. The 
Himalayan O. coarctata, Griff., appears, however, to have more 
positive characters; and possibly two or three others may be 
maintained as fairly established species. 
7. Leersia, Swartz ( Homalocenchrus, Mieg., Ehrartia, Wigg., 
Asprella, Schreb., Blepharochloa, Endl.), is essentially American ; 
but the two commonest species—L. hexandra in tropical, L. ory- 
zoides in more temperate regions—are widely spread also over the 
Old World, and had probably long been so before the civilized 
communication between the two continents. The genus 1s closely 
connected with the Asiatie Oryza; but, besides the apparent 
diversity in geographical origin, the smaller spikelets with thinner 
glumes and the general inflorescence give to Leersia a different 
aspect, and, in technical character, the want of the two small outer 
glumes may justify its retention as a distinct genus. It is true 
that those who unite it with Oryza maintain that these outer 
glumes are represented by a cartilaginous ring at the base of the 
spikelet ; but this ring is often so slight as to be rather imaginary 
than real, and never more than what is observable in Eviochloa 
and some other Gramine&, where no such theoretical explanation 
is wanted or attempted. 
8. ACHLENA, Griseb., is a single Cuban species, which the 
author compares with the Australian Microlena ; but the want of 
any glumes below the articulation places it in Oryzez, not in 
Phalaridem. It is in some other respects allied to Oryza and 
Leersia ; but the peculiar inflorescence, the form and proportion 
of the glumes, &c. readily distinguish it. Grisebach found only 
a single stamen in the flower, a character which I have no means 
of testing, the spikelets in our Specimens having already lost 
their stamens. 
The Alopecuroid group of Oryze: consists of four genera :— 
9. Beckera, Fresen., two or three Abyssinian species, in some 
