94 MR. G, BENTHAM ON GRAMINE®. 
Nees, in which these awns are particularly conspicuous. The 
African species referred by Nees to a section Achneria of Eriachne, 
form a distinct genus of Aveneæ, for which Munro has retained 
this name Achneria, the original genus Achneria of Beauvois having 
been proposed for those true Australian species of Eriachne which 
have no awn or only a very small one. 
Tribe X. AVENE. 
This tribe has been more generally recognized and subjected to 
less variations than most of the others. Its general characters— 
the paniculate inflorescence, the spikelets with two or more per- 
fect flowers, the rhachilla^produced beyond the upper flower, and 
a twisted awn to the flowering glume either dorsal or terminal 
between the two lobes or teeth of the glume— suffer fewer excep- 
tions than usual. Aira alone has no continuation of the rhachilla ; 
and Anisopogon alone has only one perfect flower in the spikelets. 
Of the following sixteen genera, the first eleven have the awn 
dorsal and the lowest flower hermaphrodite ; the next three have 
the male or sterile flower below the perfect one; and the last two 
have the lowest flower hermaphrodite and the awn terminal. 
1. Arma, Linn. was once made to include Coryaephorus, Des- 
champsia, and indeed almost all the Avenez with loosely panicu- 
late inflorescence and small two-flowered spikelets, but has since 
been so thoroughly dismembered by various European botanists 
as not to leave a single species to represent the old Linnean 
name. Taking, however, the widely spread A. caryophyllea, Linn., 
as a genuine type, and adding to it five or six European species, 
we have a natural genus of elegant, slender, mostly annual grasses 
with fine filiform leaves, the small spikelets always two-flowered 
without any continuation of the rhachilla beyond the upper flower, 
the dorsal awn of the flowering glumes rarely wanting, and the 
ripe grain often adhering to the palea; the latter character, how- 
ever, is always uncertain. These six or seven species have all 
been made the types of supposed distinct genera. A. caryophyllea, 
Linn., and A. precor, Linn., considered as typical Aire by Par- 
latore and others, form the genus Fussia, Schur, in which the two 
flowers are closely contiguous and the flowering glumes usually 
awned. Fiorinia, Parlat., is the A. Tenorii, Guss., distinguished 
by the absence of the awn; but Gussone has shown that it varies 
with or without the awn. Antinoria, Parlat., is the A. agrostidea, 
Lois., with the rhachilla more or less lengthened between the 
