DESCRIPTIONS OF TRIBES AND GENERA. 



53 



free, rarely grown to the pedicels of the lateral spikelets ; 

 spikelets usually one-flow- 

 ered, the pedicellate and 

 sessile ones alike, the 

 former rarely rudiment- 

 ary. 



Species twenty, in the 

 tropics of both hemi- 

 spheres. 



Sub-genus II. Ophiu- 

 rns (Gartn. as a genus). 

 Resembling Sub-genus I, 

 but the lateral spikelets 



are absent or rudimentary, vm.w.-itottbaittia loricata Trin. (After 

 and their pedicels grown Mart et Eichl " " Flora Bras '" n ' IIL) 

 to the rachis ; sessile spikelets one-flowered. 



Species four, in the tropics of the Old World. In 0. 

 Icevis Benth. (Mnesithea Kunth, Thyridostachyum Nees) 

 there are frequently sessile spikelets, in pairs, upon the 

 lower portion of the false spike. Ophiurus may be cor- 

 rectly considered as an independent genus. 



Sub-genus III. Hemartliria (Brown as a genus). Re- 

 sembling Sub-genus I, but the false spikes are more 

 compressed, not imperfectly articulate, and joints of the 

 rachis hollow at the apex. Lateral spikelets formed 

 like the one-flowered sessile spikelets, their pedicels 

 usually grown to the rachis-joints so that the spikelets 

 appear to be in pairs. 



Species three, in warm countries extending beyond the 

 tropics as far as South Europe and Tasmania. 



Sub-genus IV. Peltophorus Desv. (Manisuris L., not 

 Sw.). Like Sub-genus III, but the two contiguous ses- 

 sile spikelets are very unlike, the first sterile glume of 

 one having a broad margin (" bordered on each side at 

 the apex by a membranous wing" Bentham) ; joints of 

 the axis easily separable, with two appressed cavities at 

 the apex. 



Species three, in India. 



Sub-genus V. Thyrsostachys. False spikes in a 

 bushy panicle. First empty glume of the sessile, one 



