22 Mr. Woops on the Genera of European Grasses. 
6. Lappago. Spiculæ on short spikes in a raceme. The uppermost tabescent. 
Outer glume filmy; inner coriaceous, prickly. No abortive floret. 
Paspalum is not-a European genus, but it seems necessary to notice it on 
account of its close affinity with Digitaria. “A Panico distinctum,” says 
Kunth, “nonnisi gluma inferiore plerumque abortiente.” Kunth puts Digi- 
taria with Panicum. The term plerumque must in such a case be interpreted 
as admitting an accidental defect, not as a specific mark ; that in a// species it 
usually exists, but is in some occasionally wanting ; for if this be the only 
distinction, it is evident that a species uniformly possessing the inferior glume 
must be a Panicum and not a Paspalum. In the same way I should explain 
the “glumee rarissime 2" in the generic character of Paspalum. On reverting, 
however, to the species, we find that the 
tioned in the plural. 
glume in a spicula, 
glumes of this genus are always men- 
It would certainly be clearer, where there is only one 
to mention it in the singular; but supposing this to be 
merely a looseness of expression, we can yet, I think, hardly understand 
“ glumis flosculo longioribus" to apply to a single glume; and in the descrip- 
. tions of no less than 48 species of Paspalum, two glumes are explicitly men- 
tioned, or at least an inferior glume is mentioned, and the superior, as we 
know, is always present. The lower is not even always a very small glume, 
since we find in Paspalum distans and P. inœquivalve * glumá inferiore flos- 
culo dimidio breviore," and in Paspalum fuscescens, “ glumis æquilongis paleà 
inferiore paulo brevioribus." Paspalum fuscum is described “ glumis sub- 
equalibus;" P. ligulare and P. brevifolium, * glumis equalibus." Is it that 
the author in these cases, after explaining the structure of the flower in the 
generic description in his own in carelessly copying preceding 
writers, of the species, which he had pre- 
inferior abortive floret? This how- 
E = minuta, minutissima, bre- 
vissima, minima, obsoleta, and in Panicum tenui 
an . florum, obsoletissima. In 
Pan. propinquum the glume is univalvi : 7 
ee 1s, and in Pan. oj ^ 
triv the lower glume is nulla, : an. gibbosum and Pan. phæo 
Another apparent distinction is offered to us by Kunth in the generic cha- 
