ME. G. BENTHAM ON QEAMIH-EiE, IE 



culation, and were overlooked by Beauvois, Persoou, Willdenow, 

 and other general systematists. Several of the same genera 

 have since been reestablished, but under other names which have 

 now been so long and so universally adopted, that they must be 

 considered as having acquired a right of prescription to overrule 

 the strict laws of priority. It would indeed be mere pedantry, 

 highly inconvenient to botanists, and so far detrimental to science, 

 now to substitute Blumenbachia for Sorghum, FihicMa for Oyno- 

 don, Santia for Poli/^Offon, or Singlingia for Triodia. Since the 

 days of Kunth, Trinius, and Wees, the most important local re- 

 visions of Graminese are : Andersson's ' G-ramineae ScandinavisB,' 

 Parlatore's first volume of his ' Flora Italiana,' Cosson and 

 Durieu's G-lumaceous volume of the great unfinished 'More 

 d'Algerie,' Doell's Grraminese for the great Brazilian Plora 

 founded by Martins, and Pournier's Graminese for the Mexican 

 Flora he has undertaken ; besides more partial revisions by 

 Grisebach in his ' Spicilegium Flor» Eumelicse et BithynicsB,' in the 

 fourth volume of Ledebour's ' Plora Eossica,' and in various con- 

 tributions to the Floras of extratropical South America, the West 

 Indies, the Himalayas, &c., and by Emile Desvaux in Claude 

 Gay's ' Chilian Flora,' supplemented by new genera and species 

 published by Philippi in various papers on Chilian plants. 

 Andersson was a most acute observer, and had studied well the 

 northern grasses of the old world ; but from want of access to 

 a sufficiently extensive library, his synonyms, especially when 

 treating of extra-Scandinavian species, are often very inaccurate. 

 Parlatore's detailed monograph of Italian grasses is thoroughly 

 to be relied upon when the result of his own observations; but 

 unfortunately neither he nor Andersson sufficiently distinguished 

 the characters they had taken from other works from those they 

 had themselves verified. Old errors, for instance, in the de- 

 scriptions of the style or of the ripe fruit, which it is often very 

 difficult to ascertain from dried specimens, have been in several 

 instances repeated by both authors, sometimes in identical terms. 

 Both of them also, especially Andersson, show a great tendency to 

 the multiplication of genera and siDecies. Cosson and Durieu's 

 ' Monograph of Algerian Grasses,' comprising the chief portion 

 of those of the rich West-Mediterranean Flora, is a most valuable 

 treatise, both for methodical arrangement and specific distinc- 

 tions. Grisebach has also done much for the elucidation of oriental 

 Graminese. In Doell's work I have been disappointed. In many 



