430 MR. G. C. DRUCE ON A NEW SPECIES OF GRASS. 
not due to this cause is evident from the fact that examination 
shows the pales are split from its early flowering stage. 
[In all the examples of B. interruptus, Druce, the upper pale 
is, even in the young flower, divided to the base or at least 14ths 
of its length into two subequal lanceolar lobes; each of these 
has the green nerve down its middle (not exactly median), and 
the two lobes stand soon rather divaricately apart. There is 
nothing in any other species of Bromus approaching this; and 
no such complete division of the upper pale is well established 
in the whole order. Dr. Stapf has lately examined into the few 
alleged cases of the occurrence of a split upper pale in grasses ; 
and he cannot find in verifying these any case parallel to that 
of Bromus interruptus; the split is either only partial, hardly 
half-way down, or it is mechanical, ¢.e., does not exist in the 
young flower. 
Hackel, of course, overlooked the split pale in Bromus inter- 
ruptus, because he never thought of looking for anything so 
abnormal. 
Dr. Stapf argued, when Mr. Druce’s paper was read, that 
Bromus interruptus, Druce, must be treated as a monstrosity and 
could in no case be made a new species. It may indeed be 
maintained that the character of the completely bifid upper pale 
is either generic or monstrous, one or the other, and cannot be 
specific. 
The remarkable uniformity with which the upper pale is 
split to the base in every flower, in every specimen yet got from 
diverse localities, may be held to negative for the present the 
view that B. interruptus is a monstrosity. Of all the innumer- 
able species proposed as split-offs from Bromus mollis, there is 
no one so well worth a specific name as B. interruptus, Druce, 
and no one to be compared with it in morphologic interest.— 
C. B. Crarke.] 
The foregoing note in square brackets was drawn up 25th 
June, 1896, from materials kindly supplied by Dr. Stapf. 
a 
