MR. G. BENTHAM ON GRAMINE Z. 127 
following are the most prominent groups established as sections 
or proposed by some as independent genera :—1. Vulpia, Gmel. 
(Mygalurus, Link), panicle narrow, dense, and usually unilateral, 
the outer glumes very unequal, one often minute or almost obso- 
lete, the flowering glumes awned, and frequently, but not always, 
only one stamen, If we had only the common European species, 
this might well have been kept up as a genus; but in the South- 
American F. ulocheta, Doell, and F. leptothrix, Trin., the panicle 
is loose, as in Lufestaca, and in F. delicatula, Lag., F. setacea, 
Parlat., the awn is sometimes very short and the inflorescence 
rather that of Zufestuca. The proportions of the outer glumes 
vary from species to species. 2. Hufestuca, comprises the greater 
number of the species, with a loose, spreading or narrow panicle, 
the outer glumes nearly equal, the flowering ones acute or mu- 
cronate, rarely short-awned, and three stamens. Amongst them 
Grisebach has distinguished a section Pheochloa, with the ovary 
slightly hairy at the top as in Bromus; but the character is very 
variable in F. sylvatica, F. varia, and their allies. Doell has pro- 
posed a section Mallopetalum for the Brazilian F. ampliflora, 
Doell, apparently the same as the Mexican F. amplissima, Rupr., 
characterized by the lodicules villous at the top. I find these 
lodicules fringed with long hairs at the top exactly as in F. fim- 
briata, Nees, which Doell places amongst his Festuce legitime 
with glabrous lodicules. Helleria, Fourn., is proposed asa genus 
for the Mexican Bromus lividus, H. B. K., which Sprengel after- 
wards and Kunth himself removed to Festuca, of which it has all 
the characters of the awned species. The inflorescence is at first 
very like that of some varieties of Bromus tectorum; but as it 
advances the spikelets become very much divaricate or reflexed, 
giving the plant a peculiar habit. 3. Schedonorus, Beauv. (Am- 
phigenes, Janka), comprises F. pratensis, Huds., F. sylvatica, 
Host, F. nutans, Host, F. littoralis, Labill., F. Hookeriana and 
F. scirpoidea, F. Muell., and a few others, tall plants, with loose, 
narrow or spreading panicles, awnless glumes, and the grain quite 
free from the palea, thus connecting the genus with Poa. Fries 
and other Swedish botanists, whilst they rightly referred Beau- 
vois’s species of Schedonorus back to Festuca, transferred his generic 
name to a very different group, which now forms the sections 
Festucoides and Stenobromus of Bromus. 4. Catapodium, Link, 
including Micropyrum, Link, differs from Ewfestuca in the inflo. 
rescence, which is nearly the simple spike of Hordeee ; but the 
