MB. fl. BENXHAM ON GKAMINEJE. 65 



Eastern Asia from the Malayan archipelago to Japan. It has 

 the inarticulate panicle-branches and most other characters of 

 Imperata, from which Andersson technically separated it by the 

 awn of the flowering glume. Exceptional unawned species occur 

 in so many genera where they are usually awned, that this can 

 scarcely be regarded as a generic character where there is nothing 

 else to separate the two forms. Here, however, if we remove one 

 species from Imperata to Miseanthus, inflorescence supplies two 

 natural groups. In Imperata the panicle is long, narrow, and 

 dense, with short erect branches buried in the copious silky hairs, 

 the glumes are never awned, and there is only one, or rarely two, 

 stamens ; in Miscanthus the panicle is loose, with long spreading 

 branches, the silky hairs are less dense and in one species almost 

 wanting, the flowering glume is in most species awned, and there 

 are always three stamens. The species known to Trinius were 

 by him included in JEulalia ; and Munro, whom I followed in 

 the ' Flora Hongkongensis,' restricted the name Eulalia to the 

 species now constituting Miscanthus ; but as the true JEulalia of 

 Kunth is the type of a section of the very difierent genus Pol- 

 linia, I have thought it necessary to adopt Andersson's later name 

 Miscanthus. Besides his species, I would include in the genus 

 M.fuscus {ISriochrysis fusca, Trin.,^. attenuata, ITees) from East 

 India, M. saccharifer {Imperata saccharifera, Anders.), from North 

 China, which has the inflorescence and stamens, but not the awns, 

 of the other species, and M. cotulifera (Uulalia cotulifera, Munro) 

 from Japan, which has scarcely any of the hairs of the other species. 

 Steudel proposed the latter as a distinct genus under the name 

 of Eocoilopus. 



With 3. SAOCHAErM and 4. EniANTHrs commence the series 

 of true AndropogonesB with the branches of the panicle arti- 

 culate ; and these two genera are so closely connected that they 

 might well be reunited, although they are now almost universally 

 recognized as distinct. There might indeed be no great objec- 

 tion to consider both, as well as Pollinia and Spodiopogon, as sec- 

 tions of one large genus. As now limited, Saccharum is chiefly 

 characterized by the compound panicle, usually dense, sometimes 

 very large, and the spikelets very small without any points or 

 awns to the glumes. The species are supposed to be about ten, 

 the typical ones belonging to the tropical or subtropical regions of 

 the Old "World, amongst which the well-known sugar-cane is now 

 extensively cultivated also in America. The genus would also 



