122 MR. G. BENTHAM ON GRAMINER. 
glumes close under the flowering one besides the two lower per- 
sistent ones. 
52. Uwrora, Linn. (Trisiola, Rafin., Chasmanthium, Link), 
has four genuine North-American species, tall plants somewhat 
variable in inflorescence, but all with flat broad spikelets in which 
the three to six lower glumes are empty, but in size and shape 
pass gradually into the flowering ones, which vary from three to 
about twenty. If U. racemiflora, Trin. (U. virgata, Griseb.), from 
the West Indies, be retained in the genus as having flat spikelets 
with more than two empty glumes below the flowering one, it 
must be considered as a very exceptional species with the inflo- 
rescence nearly of Leptochloa among Chloridez. The small spike- 
lets are closely sessile in two rows in unilateral spikes ; and these 
spikes, shorter than in Leptochloa, are very numerous and crowded 
along the long peduncle. It would be better perhaps to regard 
the plant as a section of Leptochloa rather than as a distinct 
genus. Fournier has added three Mexican species of Uniola 
which are unknown to me; but, from his short characters, they 
would scarcely seem to be true congeners. U. prostrata, Trin., 
and its allies are now included in Distichlis. 
53. DısrıcuLıs, Rafin., comprises four or five closely allied 
species, or perhaps varieties ofa single one, extending from North 
America down the Andes to extratropical South America, one of 
them found also in Australia. They are generally, but not 
always, maritime plants, with few spikelets nearly sessile in a 
dense panicle, and generally if not always strictly dicecious, though 
the two sexes differ but little in habit. 'The glumes are rather 
rigid and paleaceous, which induced Link to join the only American 
species with which he was acquainted, with the Mediterranean 
Poa sicula, Jacq., as a genus Brizopyrum, a name retained by 
Presl and by Fournier for the American species. The European 
B. siculum, however, and some African congeners have the spike- 
lets hermaphrodite, a more regular bifarious inflorescence, and 
otherwise differ sufficiently from the American forms to be main- 
tained as a separate genus which bas a primary title to Link’s 
name. 
54. ELurorus, Trin. (Calotheca, Spreng., Chamedactylis, Nees), 
has three species from the Mediterranean region, Central Asia, 
and East India, formerly included in Dactylis, but differing in 
their creeping or prostrate branching habit, short, rigid, ofien 
