134 MR. G. BENTHAM ON GRAMINE X. 
12. AsPRELLA, Willd. (Hystrix, Moench, Gymnostichum, 
Schreb.), has three species, of which two are North-American, 
the third from New Zealand. There are two or three collateral 
spikelets to each notch as in the preceding genera; but the outer 
empty glumes are entirely deficient, except sometimes one or two 
slender ones to the lower spikelets of the spike. Willdenow’s 
name has the priority over Schreber’s ; for although the Beschrei- 
bungen of the latter author bears the date 1769 on the titlepage, 
the third part, in which the present genus was proposed, was 
only issued in 1810. 
Tribe XIV. BAMBUSEX. 
The Bamboos have been so admirably monographed by Munro 
in the twenty-sixth volume of the Linnean ‘ Transactions,’ that 
I have very few notes to make on the present occasion. Since 
the appearance of that memoir, Balansa has published a New- 
Caledonian Bamboo forming the distinct genus Greslania ; a fur- 
ther acquaintance with Thamnocalamus has induced its reunion 
with Arundinaria; and, on the other hand, Merostachys capitata, 
Hook., is so very different in inflorescence from the rest of the 
genus, that I have proposed to separate it under the name of 
Achroostachys. Y have also proposed as a new genus Melocala- 
mus, the Pseudostachyum compactiflorum, Kurz, published since 
Munro's monograph. There is also much confusion in the generic 
term Beesha, which, though used by Rheede for a Peninsular 
species of Bamboo, was first characterized by Kunth chiefly from 
the more eastern Bambusa baccifera, Roxb., now Melocanna bam- 
busoides. He did indeed also include the Peninsular and Ceylon 
species; but that was first properly characterized as a separate 
genus by Thwaites, under the name of Ochlandra, which it seems 
advisable to adopt, though the genus may include Rheede's Beesha, 
a name which it seems best to consider only in the specific sense 
first given to it. 
T 
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