TRIANDRIA. DIGTNIA. 4S 



66. LEERSrA. Snmrt%. (Rice-grass.) 



Calix 0. Corolla 2-valved, closed; valves 

 compressed, boat-shaped, without awns. (Sta- 

 mens 1, 2, 3, and 6.3 



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 L Virgijiica the channels betwixt the 

 striae of the leaves are thickly set with short hooked pri- 

 des, extremely acute and tenaceous, but most conspicu- 

 ous upon the sheathes. This genus is very considerably 

 allied to Oryza,- it does not even altogether differ in 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 mflores- 

 cence and glumes are of the same remarkable character; 

 but the Oryza is furnished with a short chafty acute calix, 

 not, however, one tlurd the length of the coriaceous 

 glumes, and is described as being furnished with an awn, 

 though none cultivated in America ever produce it, and 

 some rice also which I have seen from India considered 

 as spontaneous was equally destitute of awns. It is pro- 

 bable, as Loureiro imagines, that the awned rice is a dis- 

 tinct species. In Tournefort's Institutes there is a 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 Janjaica, 

 and another in New Holland so nearly allied to the 0. 

 hexandrot that Mr. Brown scarcely conceives them dis- 

 tinct. The valves of the O. lenticularis are said to 

 possess a degree of irriiability, and i*etain small insects; 

 it IS more probably the singular construction of the corol- 

 la which produces this phenomenon; the insect venturing 

 too far is retained as in a trap by the proboscis, and the 

 hooked ciliatures of the valves, assist in ensnaring the in- 

 truder. 



67. MILIUM. L. (Millet-grass.) 



Calix 2-valved, l -flowered, tumid. Corolla 

 2-vaIved, much shorter than the calix, with or 

 without an awn. Stigmas plumose or villous. 



Flowers paniculate (or spiked.) This genus is scarcely 

 distinct from Agrostis; if it possess any distinguishing 



