MR. G. BENTHAM ON GRAMINEE. 69 
tata, Sibth. (R. Sandorii, Friwaldsk.), a species striking for the 
long spikes, occasionally though very rarely branched at the base, 
and from the rather large spikelets with aeuminate outer glumes 
showing an approach to some Vossie, but scarcely sufficiently 
distinct from Rottboellia to be kept up as an independent genus. 
Cymbachne, Retz, a Bengal grass, has been referred by Willdenow 
to Rottboellia. Retz's character does not quite agree; but the 
plant has not since been identified, and must remain doubtful. 
Apogonia, Fourn., comprises two Mexican species which I am 
unable to distinguish from Rottboellia : Nuttall's section Apogonia 
of Hottboellia is a species of Elionurus, very closely allied to, if 
not a variety of, E. ciliaris, H. B. K. 
13. Ornıurus. This genus, as first proposed by Gaertner, in- 
cluded two very different plants separated by Brown as Zepturus 
and Ophiurus. As the latter is now limited, it differs from Fott- 
- boellia only in the absence of the second sterile spikelet of each 
node, at least in the upper part of the spike or inflorescence. It 
consists of three, or perhaps four, Asiatie, African, or Australian 
species :—O. corymbosa, Gertn. (0. ethiopica, Steud.), O. mono- 
stachya, Presl (O. undulata, Nees), and O. levis (Rottboellia levis, 
Retz, R. perforata, Roxb.). The latter species is remarkable for 
having the spikelets in the lower part of the inflorescence in pairs 
at each node as in Rottboellia, but the two of each pair separated 
by a kind of partition dividing the cavity of the rhachis into two ; 
it has therefore been raised to a genus by Kunth as Mnesithea 
and by Nees as Z'yridostachyum. Generally, however, in the 
upper part, and sometimes in the whole inflorescence, the sterile 
spikelet is wanting, as in Ophiurus, especially in the young 
Spike, for the upper or Ophiurus portion appears to fall away 
very readily, leaving only the Mnesithea part persistent. Lepturus, 
Br., is now classed in the tribe Hordeee. 
14. RATZEBURGIA, Kunth, a very elegant little flat-spiked 
Burmese grass, and 15. Maxısurıs, Linn., a common tropical 
weed with little globular spikelets, have both been well described 
and figured. 
16. HEMARTHRIA, Br., contains two or three tropical weeds or 
maritime grasses, separated from Rottboellia chiefly on account of 
the flattened and less distinctly articulated rhachis of the spike, 
and the curious way in which the stipes of the sterile spikelet is 
adnate to the rhachis, so as to make it appear sessile and almost 
opposite to a fertile spikelet, which really belongs to the next 
