MR. G. BENTHAM ON GRAMINEX. 89 
one of those plants which, by irregularity in some characters 
usually very important, is very difficult to place satisfactorily. 
The habit and size of the spikelets are more those of Poa than of 
Agrostis ; but, in the great majority of specimens, the one-flowered 
spikelets without any continuation of the rhachilla are quite 
those of Agrostex, and the palea is fully the length of the glume 
asin Deyevwia. Very rarely specimens have presented themselves 
with a minute continuation of the rhachilla ; and Brown, in a single 
Melville-Island specimen, found it to bear an empty glume or 
second flower, thus showing a connexion, and possibly, in the spe- 
cimen mentioned by Brown, a hybrid between Arctagrostis and 
Poa alpina. 
25. CALAMAGROSTIS, Adans., as now limited, comprises four or 
five species from Europe and northern and central Asia, of which 
one has also been found in South Africa, possibly, but not cer- 
tainly, introduced there. Some authors extend the genus so as 
to include the greater part of Deyeuxia, and indeed all the 
Euagrostee with a hairy rhachilla; but it seems more natural if 
confined to the typical species, which, like Agrostis, have no con- 
tinuation of the rhachilla or rarely a very slight one, and bear on 
the flowering glume a fine dorsal awn, rarely reduced to a minute 
point. They differ from Agrostis in the ring of long hairs sur- 
rounding the flowering glume, and generally in their tall almost 
reed-like habit, whence their generic name, and on which account 
they have often been placed in juxtaposition with Arundo. They 
appear, however, to be in every respect true Agrostew ; and there 
are two species, C. tenella, Kunth, and C. olympica, Boiss., which 
are almost intermediate between Calamagrostis and Agrostis, espe- 
cially as a few species of true Agrostis are not entirely without 
hairs on the rhachilla. 
26. Cryna, Linn. (Abola, Adans., Blattia, Fries), is limited by 
modern authors to two species from the northern regions of 
Europe and America, with the tall reedlike habit of the larger 
species of Calamagrostis, but with a glabrous rhachilla, and re- 
markable in the tribe by the palea having only one nerve, although 
there is every reason to believe that it is a true palea, the appa- 
rently single nerve being due to the consolidation of two. Both 
Species appear also constantly to have but one stamen in the 
flower. Some botanis!s unite the two: but from dried specimens 
they appear quite distinct. Amongst other minor points, the 
original C. arundinacea, Linn., has generally a minute continua- 
