ItE. G. BliSTTHAM ON dRAMDiTEJJi 41 



connected by intermediate forms, and several of them would pro- 

 bably be modified, and may hereafter be much improved, by a 

 closer study of species than I have at present been able to bestow 

 upon them. 



(1) Digitaria. Spikelets usually small and in alternate pairs or 

 clusters along one side of the simple spike-like branches of the 

 panicle ; those of each pair or cluster unequally pedicellate, or 

 one of them almost sessile, and the lowest glume often very 

 minute or sometimes quite deficient. This section was proposed 

 as a distinct genus in "Walter's ' Flora Carolinensis ' under the 

 name of Syntherisma, and by Eichard, in Persoon's ' Synopsis,' 

 under that of Digitaria, and is still maintained as such by many 

 botanists. It was founded originally on the cosmopolitan weed 

 Paniov/n sanguinale, Linn., in which the spike-like branches of 

 the panicle are clustered at the end of the peduncle like those of 

 Oynodon and some other ChloridesB. There are now, however, 

 nearly forty species to be included in the group, in many of which 

 the spikes or branches are distant along the peduncle, as in 

 Schedonnardus, Gynmopogon, Leptochloa, &c., among ChloridesB. 

 From this tribe the structure of the pedicellate spikelets and their 

 articulation always keep tliem perfectly distinct ; but there is a 

 series of small-flowered species, including the Australian and 

 Asiatic P. parviflorum, Br., P. tenuiflorum, Br. (Paspalum hrem- 

 foliv/m, Miigge), and Paspalum minutiflorum, Steud., and two or 

 three from South Africa, wbich have been almost equally well 

 placed by some in Paspaltmi, by others in Panicum. As in some 

 species allied to P. sanguinale, and even in some varieties of 

 P. sanguinale itself, the minute outer glume is frequently abso- 

 lutely deficient. The more pedicellate spikelets and the occa- 

 sional, however rare, appearance of the outer glume may justify 

 the placing these species rather in Panicum than in Paspalum, to 

 which I referred them in the ' Elora Australiensis.' P. platy- 

 carplhum, Trin., from Benin Island, with all the characters of true 

 Digitaria, is remarkable for the dilated membranous rhachis of 

 the spike-like branches as in the section Geresia of Paspalum. 



(2) TrichacJine. In this section, distinguished as a genus under 

 that name by Nees and others, the branches of the panicle are 

 simple as in Digitaria, but usually few, loose, scattered along the 

 peduncle, and erect. The glumes are all, or the second ones 

 alone cUiate or clothed with soft hairs as in the section Tricho- 

 Icsna ; and the fruiting glume is not much hardened. The species 



