MB. G. BENTHAM ON GHAMINEJ3. 53 



and Zea ; and the hardened fruit-case is formed partly only by 

 the outer glume, and partly also by the broad thickened and 

 hardened internode of the rhachis. 



7. EuCHLiEifA, Schrad. {Beana, Brign.), has, like Zea, the ter- 

 minal male inflorescence paniculate with numerous spikelets, and 

 the female spikes in the lower axils wrapped up in broad bracts, 

 from which are protruded the long filiform styles ; but, as in the 

 preceding genera, the female spikelets are within each bract 

 superposed in a single row on the articulate rhachis of the single 

 spike. The affinity to Zea appears to be recognized in the 

 country ; for specimens have been received from Schaffner pur- 

 porting to be known as " wild maize." 



8. ZiA, Linn. {Mays, Gsertn.). — This most important, widely 

 diffused, and most striking grass is only known in a cultivated 

 state, or perhaps as an escape from cultivation. With most of the 

 general characters of the tribe to which it gives its name, it 

 is exceptional not only in that tribe, but in the whole Order, 

 by the manner in which its numerous female spikelets are densely 

 packed in several vertical rows round a central spongy or corky 

 axis. How far this arrangement may have gradually arisen after 

 so many centuries of cultivation can only be a matter of conjec- 

 ture. Its gradual progress cannot be traced through the nume- 

 rous cultivated varieties, many of them described as species in 

 Eonafous's splendidly illustrated monograph ; and the idea that 

 some of them are wild indigenous forms must be traced to the 

 insufficiency of the observations recorded by travellers. 



Tribe III. OEYZE.ffi. 



This tribe, as originally constituted, was loosely characterized, 

 chiefly by uniflorous spikelets and stamens more than three — a 

 character more or less dispersed through various different tribes ; 

 and several of the genera included in it by Kunth have since been 

 rejected. The close affinity of Oryzese and Phalarea; has also been 

 recognized, though the limits of the latter tribe also have been very 

 unsettled. In the ' Flora Australiensis ' I had united the two as 

 an intermediate tribe, connecting, as it were, the two great primary 

 series of Panicacese and Poacese ; but upon the whole it seems better 

 to separate them as tribes technically distinct, but representative 

 of each other in the two great series. The essential character of 

 both resides in having the scale immediately under the single ter- 

 minal perfect flower keeled or 1-nerved like the glumes, so as to 



