so Mr. Woods on the Genera of European Grasses. 



European species, which is united by Kunth to Sporoholus, but it wants the 

 soluble pericarp so remarkable in that genus. There is some difference of 

 appearance between this plant and Agrostis, to which, however, it perhaps 

 might be reunited without impropriety. 



Of Agrostis Palisot de Beauvois makes 5 genera. Agraulos, palea only 1, 

 awned. Trichodium, palea 1, unarmed. Agrostis, paleee 2, the outer one 

 awned. Vilfa, paleee 2, unarmed ; and Apera {Agrostis spica venti), which is 

 separated on account of the almost terminal position of the awn. 



Sir J. E. Smith says that the corolla in this genus is usually larger than the 

 calyx. In all the species which I have had the opportunity of examining, 

 except in A. spica venti and A. interrupta, forming the genus Apera of Palisot 

 de Beauvois, the corolla is decidedly smaller than the glumes. Kunth says, 

 "glumse florem plerumque multo superantes," and the figures of Palisot de 

 Beauvois and of Reichenbach agree in representing the corolla as smaller than 

 the calyx. 



CoLEANTHUs is a dclicatc little Grass, of which we know only one species, 

 and this seems to be confined to Bohemia. It cannot be confounded with any 

 other, nor, I think, joined to any other tribe. 



Kunth places Knappia among the Phalaridece ; of course it would in that 

 case belong to the division of the tribe which I have separated under the name 

 of Phleinece ; but on the whole, I have preferred numbering it among the 

 Agrostidece in spite of the peculiarity of its inflorescence, — a peculiarity which 

 has induced Sir W. Hooker to place it among the spiked Grasses. The palea 

 is very thin and tender, truncate and lacerate at the top, and covered with a 

 sort of shagginess, which seems rather to consist of torn-up portions of its 

 substance than of hairs. These circumstances render it very difficult to tell 

 whether or not there is an inner palea, as it is not easy to exhibit the outer 

 without tearing it, and impossible to decide from its appearance when dis- 

 played whether it has been torn or not. 



I have been very much at a loss to know by what name this Grass ought to 

 be called. Adanson, who first separated it from Agrostis, called it Mibora ; 

 "but," says Sir J. E. Smith, "that author's names, so often founded on bad 

 principle, have been generally neglected." The next name was Chamagrostis ; 

 and surely if Mihora was founded on a bad principle, this rests upon a worse, 



