Mr. Woops on the Genera of European Grasses, 47 
7. Hordeum. Spiculz in threes, 1-flowered, with the stalk-like rudiment of 
a second floret towards the common rachis 
The species of Bracuypopium have been alternately united with Bromus and 
Festuca. Kunth joins them to Triticum, and I confess I find more difficulty 
in drawing up a character which shall distinguish them from that genus than 
from either of the others. The spiculz are not more stalked than they are 
in the division Micropyrum, nor perhaps than in Triticum caninum; and in 
T. Nardus the glumes are nearly as unequal as in Brachypodium. 
* Spiculze rachi contrarie," “ Calyx racheos scrobiculæ parallelus," “ Spi- 
culæ rachi parallele,“ are the terms used by different botanists to express the 
peculiar position of the spiculæ of Lorum. | Smith's calyx of one valve oppo- 
site to the rachis is less obscure, but seems hardly sufficient to indicate the 
position of the spicula itself. 
Triticum, as it stands now, is a difficult genus to characterise. Smith says, 
“ Calyx of two transverse opposite valves, solitary, many-flowered :" this would 
certainly include Brachypodium, and was probably intended to comprehend 
T. loliaceum and T. maritimum. There is nothing also to exclude several 
other plants whose flowers are sessile on a one-sided or two-sided rachis. The 
word transverse is probably introduced to distinguish it from Lolium, but does 
not well explain the position of the spicula. In the longer description of the 
genus he says, “spikelets lateral, contrary to the main stalk.” Kunth, on the 
other hand, says, * spiculze rachi communi parallela" Smith adds, that the 
outer palea is keeled or furrowed; but this is not true of T. durum, nor can it 
be well said of T. repens, where neither keel nor furrow is carried down to the 
base, nor are there either keels or furrows to the division Micropyrum. He 
assigns to it a loose seed, but the seed is said to be attached in T. Spelta, 
T. monococcum, T. dicoccum, and I find it to be so also in T. Poa. In 
T. Nardus the valves are unequal ; and without the character of equal m: 
which obtains through most of the genus, we seem to have no deep 
from Brachypodium. The habit would make me wish to keep distinet the 
four genera Brachypodium, Agropyrum, Micropyrum, and Triticum is pt : 
have laboured in vain to find characters on which they might be divided. 
The seed is crested in the cultivated wheats, but not, I believe, in any species 
of the divisions Agropyrum and Micropyrum. 
