56 ME. G. BBNTHAM ON GEAMINE^. 



Indian semiaquatic species nearly allied to Zizania, but quite 

 distinct in its hermaphrodite flowers and other characters. 



6. Oktza, Linn. {Padia, Zoll. and Mor.), an Asiatic genus, of 

 which the typical species, the well-known Eice, appears to be 

 really indigenous in Australia as well as in East India ; but it 

 has been so much cultivated from time immemorial, that it is now 

 found apparently wild in various parts of Africa and America. 

 It has produced a large number of difi'erent forms, nearly twenty 

 of which have been published as substantive species, all of which, 

 or nearly all, are reduced by others to varieties of O. sativa. The 

 Himalayan 0. coarctata, Grifi"., appears, however, to have more 

 positive characters 5 and possibly two or three others may be 

 maintained as fairly established species. 



7. Leeesia, Swartz (HomalocencArus, Mieg., Ehrartia, Wigg., 

 Asprella, Schreb., Blepharochloa, Endl.), is essentially American; 

 but the two commonest species — L. hexandra in tropical, L. orf- 

 zoides in more temperate regions — are widely spread also over the 

 Old "World, and had probably long been so before the civilized 

 communication between the two continents. The genus is closely 

 connected with the Asiatic Oryza ; but, besides the apparent 

 diversity in geographical origin, the smaller spikelets with thinner 

 glumes and the general inflorescence give to Leersia a difi'erent 

 aspect, and, in technical character, the want of the two small outer 

 glumes may justify its retention as a distinct genus. It is true 

 that those who unite it with Oryza maintain that these outer 

 glumes are represented by a cartilaginous ring at the base of the 

 spikelet ; but this ring is often so slight as to be rather imaginary 

 than real, and never more than what is observable in Eriochloa 

 and some other G-raminesB, where no such theoretical explanation 

 is wanted or attempted. 



8. AcHLiENA, Griseb., is a single Cuban species, which the 

 author compares with the Australian Microlosna ; but the want of 

 any glumes below the articulation places it in Oryzese, not in 

 Phalaridese. It is in some other respects allied to Oryza and 

 Leersia; but the peculiar inflorescence, the form and proportion 

 of the glumes, &c. readily distinguish it. Grrisebach found only 

 a single stamen in the flower, a character which I have no means 

 of testing, the spikelets in our specimens having already lost 

 their stamens. 



The Alopecuroid group of OryzesB consists of four genera : — 



9. Beckeea, Presen., two or three Abyssinian species, in some 



