70 ME. Q. BBNTHAM OS GEAMIHE^. 



superior node. These characters, though generally well marked, 

 are sometimes more or less obscure. 



17. VossiA, Wall, and Griff., closely connects the EottboeUieae 

 with Ischcsmum. As in the former, the flowering glume is always 

 unawned, and the rhachis of the spike is rigid and deeply notched, 

 but the lower empty glume, at least of the pedicellate spikelet, is 

 produced into a long point or awn ; there are generally several 

 spikes or simple branches along the common peduncle, and there 

 is in each sessile spikelet a male flower below the terminal fertile 

 one, as in IscTicemum. The genus was originally established on a 

 handsome semiaquatic East-Indian grass, which has since been 

 found also in tropical Africa, and two or three additional species 

 have reached us from the same country. "We should also refer to 

 Vossia the Ischamum speciosum of Nees from East India. Hremo- 

 chloa, a Japanese plant described by Biise, is unknown to me ; but 

 the character given, if I correctly understand it, agrees well with 

 that of Vossia. 



To the fourth group, or subtribe UuandropoffoneiS, may be 

 referred nine genera, in which the two spikelets of each pair are 

 heterogamous and the flowering glume of the fertile one is more 

 or less awned ; and in the first five the spikelets are in many pairs 

 along the rhachis of the simple spikes or panicle-branches. These 

 nine genera are increased to twenty-one by Andersson and others, 

 whilst Steudel unites seven out of the nine under his Andropogon. 



18. Theleposon, Eoth (Jar&'«iffi, Steud.), comprises one East- 

 Indian and two or three tropical- African species, all very elegant 

 and closely resembling each other. Their infiorescence is that of 

 Vossia, whilst the spikelets are nearer those of Ischcemiim, but re- 

 markable for the rigid tuberculate outer empty glumes. Nees, in 

 working up Wight and Amott's Peninsular grasses, gave Eoth's 

 name to a very different grass (Ischcemum semisagittatum, E.oxb.), 

 adding the observation that Roth's "description is very bad. The 

 fact is, however, that it is Nees who was mistaken in his identi- 

 fication, whilst Eoth's description of the true plant is excellent. 



19. IscH^MXTM, Linn., as now understood, has about thirty 

 species, widely dispersed over the warmer regions both of the New 

 and the Old World, the chief character connecting them being 

 that the sessile spikelets have a male flower below the terminal 

 fertile one. The spikes are also usually stouter than in Andro- 

 pogon, and the genus is a fairly natural one. Beauvois restricted it 

 to the I. mwticim, Linn., in which the awn of the flowering glume 



