40 ]\Ir. '\^'ooDS on the Genera of European Grasses. 



a scariose margin, and are sometimes furnished with a point or seta, never 

 with a separable awn. The inner palea is scariose and pellucid, except on 

 the two nerves or keels, which are green, and at which the palea is uniformly 

 folded. The panicle is one-sided in Melica, Sclerocliloa, Dacti/lis, and Fesfuca ; 

 in G/i/ceria f/ii/fans, and in Ci/nosurus echinatiis, elegans, and aureus. Oreo- 

 ehlod and Ci/nosurus crisfafus have a one-sided spike. The rest have a panicle 

 equal all round. The particulars, some or other of which distinguish them 

 from the Avenaceœ, are the small glumes, quite unequal to give any important 

 j)rotectiou to the spiculse, and, as already noticed, the awn and the firm hairs 

 at the base of the florets in that tribe, where they exist. This tendency to the 

 productioii of one kind of arms or pubescence rather than of another, while 

 the plant is often without either, can only with great difficulty be admitted 

 into an artificial character ; yet, I think, even there some use of it may be 

 made, and iu tracing natural affinities no botanist will deny its importance. 

 Schismus and JMeVica have large glumes, and so in some degree has Sesleria. 

 None of the Fesfucaceœ have long silky hairs like those of the ^îrund/nacea', 

 and none of them have the spicula in a simple spike with opposite rows ; and 

 this constitutes their leading difference from tiie Ilordeacece. It is true that 

 Tr'ificum Nardus, and T. unihderale have their flowers in one-sided spikes, 

 wliich may render it doubtful whether they should not be placed among the 

 Fesfucaceœ, but not whether any of the Festucaceœ should be joined to that 

 tribe. Festuca mar'it'inui and F. dirar/cafa, two plants certainly of the same 

 genus, and which with Kunth 1 refer to Fesfuca, have their spicuh-e sessile on 

 a channelled and toothed rachis. But the rachis is branched and triangular, 

 the spiculœ occupying only two faces of the prism, making the whole inflo- 

 rescence one-sided, and giving to each plant quite the air of a Fesfuca. Triti- 

 cum loliaceuni {Scleruc/i/oa loliacea) has also a one-sided disposition throughout, 

 and the spiculee are not cjuite sessile. The genera are : 



1. Kœleria. Spiculœ crowded, compressed; glumes nerved, membranous; 



inner nearly as long as the spicula. Florets 2 — 5, crowded. Outer palea 

 keeled, nerved (not ribbed), acuminate, or with a straight terminal or 

 subapicular seta. 



2. Schismus. Glumes ribbed, obtuse, much larger than the paleœ ! find nearly 



