MB. a. BENTITAM ON CYPERACEJJ. 3G1 



which they were founded, or other indications leading to their 

 probable determination. This essay seems not to have fallen into 

 the hands of any subsequent Cyperographers, who have only known 

 of Beauvois's genera by the short characters copied into the Man- 

 tissa of the second volume of Koemer and Schultes's Systema 

 without the accompanying indications ; and Nees, in the endea- 

 vour to adopt them, was obliged to make random guesses of the 

 plants intended, which have often proved to be very wide of the 

 mark. Kunth generally followed Nees's identifications, having 

 no means of checking them. The following notes are the result 

 of as careful a study of the paper itself as I have been able to 

 make. 



Among the seventeen new genera proposed, eight (Vignea, Sper- 

 onodon, Pycreus, Trasi, Hypolepis, Schcenopsis, Trichelostylis, and 

 Beera) appear all to have been correctly identified by Nees or by 

 Kunth, and are now respectively referred as sections or synonyms 

 to various previously established genera. 



Catagyne, Beauv., has not been referred to any recently known 

 plant. The very imperfect character would seem to indicate the 

 genus JEriospora, Hochst. ; and this might be in some measure 

 confirmed by the only indication given as a guide, that it is 

 founded on a specimen communicated by Dupetit Thouars, and 

 therefore probably African or Mascarene. But even if this 

 supposition prove to be correct, Beauvois's genus cannot be con- 

 sidered as published with sufficient precision for the name to 

 supersede Hochstetter's since firmly established one. 



Zosterospermum, Beauv., could not possibly be identified by 

 Lestiboudois's character, and nothing is said of the origin of the 

 plant on which it was founded ; but Desvaux, who probably had 

 occasion to see an authentic specimen, gives a rather more complete 

 character in Hamilton's ' Prodromus Florae India? Occidentalis.' 

 This clearly indicates the Rhynchospora sparsa, Vahl, which I 

 should place in the section Pleurostachys, Beauv., or Nemochloa, 

 Nees, of that genus. 



Hypoelytrum, Lestib., is evidently characterized from Lipo- 

 carpha, Beauv. This plant was originally included in the genus 

 Hypoelytrum, Bicb. ; but later botanists have restricted the name 

 io the other portion of Biehard's genus. 



Elynanthus, Beauv., cannot be determined with any certainty, 

 although the chief character given is that of Hypoelytrum, as re- 

 stricted by recent botanists. It is certainly totally different from 



