Aira. | CXLIV. GRAMINEJE. 585 
short, distinct. Grain enclosed in and more or p adnate to the very 
thin oy and palea 
include pan e Airopsis, on puploris aad others, wine h some botanists stil 
retain in it, but then it is difficul en any limits to spared it from Avena on 
one side and from desti Meriva an ir Cala chne on the other. T botanists dis- 
guish generically almost every species usually retained in Ain 
reg loosely naeh almost trichotomous . . . . 1. 4. caryophyllea, 
Panicle narrow and dense, almost spikelike . . « 2 A. precoz. 
l. A. caryophyllea, Linn.; Kunth, kg i 289.—A slender 
elegant tufted annual, rarely above 6 in. high Leaves short and fine. 
anicle loose and spreading, the capillary yea ches in pairs or threes. 
— erect, silvery-shining. Outer glumes 1 to 12 lines long, 
scarious, very acute. Flowering glumes shorter, the dorsal awn 
projecting a about a litte beyond the outer glume. — Reiehb. le. Fl. 
Victoria. "Various png itn about Melbourne, F. Mueller and others ; Moyston, 
Sullivan; vagi Sha 
Tasmani ct by. 
Tum p over the area of the genus. 
ed Er praecox, Linn. ; Kunth, Enum. i. 289.—A slender annual of 
2 to 4 in. or rarely attaining 6 i " Leaves m short and fine. Panicle 
contracted, almost ihe et + to l in . long. Spikelets not very 
numerous, erect, Out r ghinies ecarious, shining, acute, 1 to 1} lines 
long. Flowering diee shorter, thin and hyaline, finely pointed but 
Er bifid, the lowest sessile, the second yo nearly sessile, with a 
w short hairs on the rhachis, which ro et to be sometimes produced 
ideo a minute clavate bristle. Awn attached below the middle of p 
flowering Pu and shortly ihn the outer ones.—hHeichb. 
Fl. Germ. t. 94. 
reside Pot Lap Walter. 
W. Australia, King George's Sound, Oldfield, F. Mueller. 
A West European and Mediterranean grass, probably introduced only into 
Australia. 
* 57. HOLCUS, Linn. 
Spikelets 2-flowered, numerous and crowded in an open panicle, the 
wer flower hermaphrodite, the upper one male, the rhachis giabrous 
and produced above the outer glumes. Outer empty glumes 2, nearly 
