66. 
m 
- cence and glumesare of the same remarkable character; 
67. 
Q. 
without an awn. Stigmas plumose or vil 
compressed, boat-shaped, without awns. (Sta- 
- Calix 2-valved, 1-fiowered, pate E * cS | 
TRIANDRIA. DIGYNIA. 45 
LEERSIA. Swartz. (Rice-grass.) . 
Calix 0, Corolla 2-valved, closed: valves 
ens 1, 2, 3, and 6.) 
Flowers in appressed or spreading panicles, alternate — 
and nearly sessile; receptacle of the glume concave and 
somewhat margined; glumes Of the corolla apparently. 
growing together after flowering. Leaves more or less* — 
scabrous; in the Z. Virginica the channels betwixt the 
striz of the leaves are thickly set with short hooked pri- _ 
cles, extremely acute and tenaceous, but most conspicue 
ous upon the sheathes. This genus is very considerably 
allied to Oryza; it does not even altogether differin the 
number of stamens, there being in Jamaica an hexandrous | 
species of Leersia, there is also a bifid’ perisporium (or — 
nectary) in this genus as well as in Oryza, their inflores- 
but the Oryza is furnished witha short chaffy acute calix, 
not, however, one third the length of the coriaceous — 
glumes, and is described as being furnished with anawn, — 
though none cultivated in America ever produce it, and 
some rice also which I have seen from India considered 
as spontafieous was equally destitute of awns. It is pro- 
bable, as Loureiro imagines, that the awned rice is a dis- 
tinct species. In Tournefor’’s Institutes there isa figure 
of a panicle of rice with awns as long almost as a Stipa. — 
Species. 1. L. Virginica. 2. lenticularis. 3. oryzoides, 
Besides these 3 species there are 2 others in Jamaica, — 
and another in New Holland so nearly allied tothe 0. 
hexandra, that Mr. Brown scarcely conceives them dis- 
tinct. The valves of the O. lenticularis are said to 
possess a degree of irritability, and re‘ain small insects; 
it 1s more probably the singular construction of the corol- __ 
la which produces this phejomenon; the insect venturing _ 
too far is retained as itra trap by the proboscis, and the _ 
hooked ciliatures of the valves, assist in ensnaring the in~ 
truder. ue hc oe cee 
MILIUM. L. (Millet-grass.) 
valved, much shorter than the calix, with or - 
Flowers paniculate (or spiked.) This genus 
distinct from Agrostis; if it possess any 
