ME. G. BENTHAM OIT GEAMHiTE^. 89 



one of those plants which, by irregularity in some characters 

 usually very important, is very difficult to place satisfactorily. 

 The habit and size of the spikelets are more those of Poa than of 

 Agrostis ; but, in the great majority of specimens, the one-flowered 

 spikelets without any continuation of the rhachilla are quite 

 those of Agrostese, and the palea is fully the length of the glume 

 as in Deyeuocia. Very rarely specimens have presented themselves 

 with a minute continuation of the rhachilla ; and Brown, in a single 

 Melville-Island specimen, found it to bear a,n empty glume or 

 second flower, thus showing a connexion, and possibly, in the spe- 

 cimen mentioned by Brown, a hybrid between Arctagrostis and 

 Foa alpina. 



25. CAiiAMAGEOSTis, Adans., as now limited, comprises four or 

 five species from Europe and northern and central Asia, of which 

 one has also been found in South Africa, possibly, but not cer- 

 tainly, introduced there. Some authors extend the genus so as 

 to include the greater part of Deyeuxia, and indeed all tlie 

 Euagrostese with a hairy rhachilla ; but it seems more natural if 

 confined to the typical species, which, like Agrostis, have no con- 

 tinuation of the rhachilla or rarely a very slight one, and bear on 

 the flowering glume a fine dorsal awn, rarely reduced to a minute 

 point. They differ from Agrostis in the ring of long hairs sur- 

 rounding the flowering glume, and generally in their tall almost 

 reed-like habit, whence their generic name, and on which account 

 they have often been placed in juxtaposition with Arundo. They 

 appear, however, to be in every respect true Agrostese ; and there 

 are two species, C. tenella, Kunth, and C. olympica, Boiss., which 

 are almost intermediate between Galamagrostis and Agrostis, espe- 

 cially as a few species of true Agrostis are not entirely without 

 hairs on the rhachilla. 



26. CiNNA, Linn. {Ahola, Adans., Blattia, Eries), is limited by 

 modern authors to two species from the northern regions of 

 Europe and America, with the tall reedlike habit of the larger 

 species of Oalamagrostis, but with a glabrous rhachilla, and re- 

 markable in the tribe by the palea having only one nerve, although 

 there is every reason to believe that it is a true palea, the appa- 

 rently single nerve being due to the consolidation of two. Both 

 species appear also constantly to have but one stamen in the 

 flower. Some botanists unite the two ; but from dried specimens 

 they appear quite distinct. Amongst other minor points, the 

 original 0. arundinacea, Linn., has generally a minute continua- 



