12 Mr. Woods on the Genera of European Grasses. 



so in all others, it is only a caution to be attended to in all cases, and a com- 

 pliance with the very just and important Linnean maxim, — that the genus 

 must give the character, but a character does not constitute a genus. 



The general inflorescence of Grasses is very various. Zea is the only genus 

 which has any pretence to a place in the Flora of middle Europe, where that 

 of the barren* and fertile flowers is different; the former being a terminal 

 panicle, the latter an axillary spike. It is even, I believe, the only one where 

 there are fertile florets devoid of anthers. In other genera the spiculse are 

 either scattered in a loose panicle, or in a compact or spike-like one ; or they 

 are in a real spike or head, in which the florets are tiled equally all round ; 

 or they are in opposite rows ; or they are in two rows on the same side of the 

 common i*achis, which in that case is usually flattened to receive them, and 

 more or less triangular. The panicle is also sometimes disposed equally all 

 round, or the branches are placed more on one side than the other, so as to 

 leave one part of the circumference destitute of florets. We must add, that 

 the spicules are either solitary or disposed in pairs or groups, and that in 

 these groups the spiculse are all sessile, or sessile and stalked. The spiculse 

 themselves are either all perfect, or some barren or neuter, and others per- 

 fect, and they contain only one floret and nothing more ; or one floret and 

 the rudiment of a second ; and this rudiment is either below or above the 

 perfect floret ; or they have two florets, or more than two florets. 



From the combination of these particulars we find among Grasses the fol- 

 lowing modes of inflorescence. 



1. Spiculse solitary, 1 -flowered, or with not more than the stalk -like rudi- 

 ment of a second, which, when it occurs, is on the side of the inner or upper 

 glume, and therefore the indication of a superior floret, disposed in a panicle 

 (either loose or spike-like), equal all round. This is the arrangement in 

 Leersia and Oryza, in the Phleine^ of the following pages, in Stipace^, 

 AoROSTiDEiE, and the one-flowered Arundinace^. 



2. Spiculae 1-flowered, or with only an imperfect external rudiment of a 

 second, placed in pairs or groups in a panicle equal all round. This is the 

 disposition of the florets in the Lygeum, in the Andropogone^, (except in 



* I use barren to express spiculse or florets which have only anthers ; fertile, where there are only 

 pistils ; perfect, where there are both ; neuter, where there are neither. 



