Mr. Woops on the Genera of European Grasses. 25 
of which the two lowermost, and very rarely a third, are fertile; one is, I 
believe, always neuter, and sometimes a second. 
There is no other genus in the European Flora which can be associated 
with this tribe, for Cynodon, though resembling Digitaria in habit, wants the 
trace of an abortive exterior floret. It is true that in the one-glumed species 
of Digitaria it might be difficult to determine that the second valve was any- 
thing but a superior glume, but the rudiment of a superior floret in Cynodon 
will assist our judgement at least in rejecting that genus from the present 
tribe. 
OnvzEE. 
It would hardly be allowable to draw up any character of this tribe from 
the only two European species which it contains. "These agree in having the 
spiculæ scattered in a loose equal panicle, each of one perfect floret, without 
any additional rudiment either internal or external. The glumes are small 
and distant, or wholly wanting. The paleæ are of equal length, nearly val- 
vular, membrano-herbaceous, the outer deeply concave and boat-shaped. 
The foreign genera assigned to this tribe by Kunth bave florets of different 
sorts, or at least an evident, though, perhaps, very imperfect rudiment, but 
none have more than one perfect floret in the spicula. I have only to notice, 
1. Leersia. Glumes 0. Outer palea ribbed. Stamens 3. 
2. Oryza. Glumes 2, not precisely opposite. Outer palea ribbed and grained 
as if woven. Stamens 6. 
The small and apparently inefficient glumes distinguish this tribe from our 
other single-flowered Grasses.  Coleanthus, indeed, has no glumes, and pro- 
bably on that account has been placed in this tribe by Reichenbach; but the 
paleze of unequal length, one embracing the other, and the small size and 
delicate appearance announce a greater affinity with the Agrostidee. The 
glumes are wanting also in Lygeum and Nardus, but neither of these plants 
approach in other respects to the Oryzee. 
PHALARIDEZÆ, 
I only admit into this tribe such plants as show a tendency to produce one 
or two external imperfect florets, and no indication of a superior one; the 
VOL. XVIII. E 
