MR, G. BENTHAM ON GRAMINEF. 99 
single perfect flower. Nees added a second species from South 
Africa which I have not seen; but from his description it can 
scarcely be a congener. Kunth has figured three lodieules in 
the Australian plant ; I have always found only two long lanceo- 
late ones. 
16. DANTHoNTA, DC., is now a polymorphous, almost cosmo- 
politan, genus of nearly a hundred species, of which the greater 
number, however, are South-African, all characterized by the 
spikelets containing three or more perfect flowers, and by the 
awn of the flowering glumes more or less twisted or bent and 
usually flattened at the base, but terminal between two or four 
teeth or straight awns. Notwithstanding considerable diversities 
in habit, inflorescence, and in the size and teeth of the glumes, 
no good natural sections have yet been proposed. Nees's Hi- 
mantochete (Streblochete, Hochst.), with the lateral lobes or teeth 
of the flowering glumes entire and acute or awned, and Penta- 
schiste, with the lateral teeth bifid and one or both teeth awned, 
are purely artificial, and relate to the African species, all the non- 
African ones being included in Himantochete. DeCandolle ori- 
ginally proposed the genus for two European species, D. procum- 
bens and D. provincialis ; Brown showed, however, that they could 
not well be regarded as congeners, and removed the former to 
his new genus Zriodia. The D. provincialis therefore becomes 
the type of the present large genus Danthonia, though it may be 
somewhat anomalous when compared with the majority of the 
African and Australian ones. DeCandolle’s chief character con- 
necting his original species was the great length of the outer 
empty glumes compared with the rest of the spikelet ; and this is 
a general, though not quite a universal, feature of the enlarged 
genus, Since Brown's time the following genera have been pro- 
posed, chiefly upon single species, with characters which appear 
to be of little more than specific value :— Penfameris, Beauv., is 
D. Thouarsii, Nees, from South Africa, with nearly the habit and 
inflorescence of D. pallescens, Nees, but remarkable for the short 
thick grain truncate at the top. Triraphis, Nees (not of R. Br.), 
is D. radicans, Steud., from South Africa, nearly allied to D. crispa, 
Nees. Chetobromus, Nees, contains a few South-African species, 
in which one, or sometimes two, of the flowers in the spikelet are 
imperfect. Monacather, Steud., is D. bipartita, F. Muell., an 
Australian species, with the fruiting glumes hardened and oblique 
at the base and bearing a ring of hairs under the lobes. Plin- 
