Mr. Woops on the Genera of European Grasses, 23 
racters. He says of the pale; of Paspalum, “inferior superiorem binerviam 
amplectens ;" of those of Panicum, “ inferior superiorem parinerviam amplec- 
tens.“ If by parinerviam we are to understand that the interior palea has the 
same number of nerves as the exterior, it would be a curious distinction, and 
in opposition to the general structure of the flowers of Grasses, which requires 
a central rib in the outer palea and rejects it in the inner. This, however, 
does not agree with the fact, and we must therefore suppose him to mean that 
the nerves of the interior palea are in pairs, and that there is consequently an 
even number of them, and this would not exclude the * paleam binerviam" of 
Paspalum. In those Panicums which I have examined I find two nerves and 
no more in the interior palea. On the whole, I confess myself unable to make 
out any difference between Paspalum and Digitaria, for the spiculæ of the 
former seem always to be disposed in rows on the same side of a flattened 
rachis as in the latter; and the spiculæ, as far as I can make out, are some- 
times, but not constantly, in pairs in both genera. 
In our species of Digitaria the lowermost spiculæ in luxuriant specimens 
are three together; the upper ones are usually solitary; the intermediate ones, 
forming the greater number, are in pairs, one of which is sessile, or very nearly 
so, and the other stalked. This genus, as I have already said, is not admitted 
by Kunth; and indeed the one-sided digitate spikes, which form at once so 
evident and so beautiful a character, would not, on the generally received prin- 
ciples of botanical science, be acknowledged as a sufficient mark of separation. 
Sir J. E. Smith seems rather to have endeavoured to deceive himself into a 
belief of the difference between Panicum and Digitaria by placing Digitaria 
among the one-flowered, and Panicum among the two-flowered Grasses, than 
to have been really convinced of it. And while Digitaria has an additional 
glume to the calyx, and the additional floret of Panicum is reduced to a single 
valve, so very much like an additional glume that Sir James does not attempt 
to give any mark by which they may be practically distinguished, we cannot 
admit a separation merely on this ground Sir W. Hooker adds, that the flowers 
are in unilateral spikes, and this is the distinction I am contending for; and 
I think we may be allowed to use the word spike with this latitude, though 
some of the florets are evidently stalked. 
O»LisMENUSs has a small point to the outer palea, and the nerves of the inner 
