52 ME. G. BENTHAM ON GEAMINE*. 



sometimes within them two or three very minute scales, which 

 may possibly be rudimentary staminodia. Doell has also pro- 

 posed to separate generically, under the name of Eremites, a 

 Brazilian plant -which, from the single spike I have seen as well 

 as from his description and figure, appears to be no more than 

 a starved state of some true I'ariana. 



2. Coix, Linn. {Lithagrostis, Gaertn.), contains three or four 

 East-Indian species closely allied to each other, one of which, 

 the common " Job's tears," is widely spread over the warmer 

 regions both of the New and the Old World, but in many places 

 of comparatively modern introduction. The hard covering of the 

 fruit here consists of the sheath of a subtending bract, the 

 withered glumes as well as the internode of the rhachis remaining 

 entirely enclosed within it. 



3. PoLTTOCA, Br. {Gyaihorhachis, Nees), three or four tropical 

 Asiatic species in which the stony ease of the fruit is formed by 

 the outer empty glume, which is completely closed over the 

 remainder of the spikelet as well as the internode to which it is 

 attached. The species are : — (1) P. hracteata, Br. (Coix heteroelita, 

 Eoxb.), spicis masculis terminalibus ramosis, inferioribus an- 

 drogynis v. fcemineis plerisque simplicibus, glumis exaristatia : 

 (2) P. WalUchiana {OyathorJiachis Wallichiana, Nees), spicis 

 masculis terminalibus ramosis, inferioribus androgynis v. fcemineis 

 plerisque simplicibus, spicularum mascularum gluma exteriore 

 longe tenuiterque aristata: (3) P. maorophylla, sp. n., spicis 

 longis (omnibus ?) androgynis simplicibus, glumis aeuminatis 

 exaristatis ; folia adsunt 2-pedalia, 2 poll, lata, spicae 4-6-polli- 

 cares : from the Louisiade Archipelago {MacQillivray). 



4. Chionachne, Br., contains three species from tropical Asia 

 or Australia, in which the hardened fruit-case is formed, as in 

 Polytoca, of the outer empty glume, but the internode of the 

 rhachis, instead of being completely enclosed within it, is em- 

 braced only by its thickened margins, and is seen lying as it 

 were in a groove of the fruit-case. 



5. ScLEEACHNE, Br., is a single Javan species, with the 

 fruit nearly of Chionachne, but with a different habit, and the 

 hardened outer glume is produced beyond the fruit into an open 

 membranous appendage. 



6. Teipsacum, Linn., consists of two or three American species 

 with the terminal male inflorescence usually more branched than 

 in the preceding Asiatic genera, approaching that of EucUcena 



