- MB. a. BENTHAM ON GEAMIITEJE. 101 



Koel.), a small but mixed genus, of which the typical species is 

 a common weed in most warm or temperate parts of the civilized 

 world. It has the slender spikes and small spikelets oi MierocMoa ; 

 but the spikes are several digitate at the end of the panicle, and 

 the vhachilla is produced beyond it into a small point or bristle. 

 Three Australian species have, however, been added to it with the 

 spikelets of MicrocMoa but with the inflorescence of Gynodon, 

 thus closely connecting the two genera. Persoon's generic name 

 is far from being the oldest, but has been so long and so uni- 

 versally adopted, that the substitution of either of the others 

 for it would only breed confusion without the slightest advantage. 



4. Haepeohloa, Kunth, has also two South-African species. 

 The spike is single, terminal, dense, and unilateral, often falcate ; 

 and there are usually one or two male flowers above the fertile 

 one, the glumes all uuawned. 



Of 5. Ctenium, Pauz. (Monocera, EIL), we have seven species, 

 of which four from North or South America, three from Africa 

 or the Mascarene islands. The spikes are solitary or rarely two 

 or even three at the end of the peduncle ; the spikelets, though 

 elegantly pectinate as in HarpecMoa, have a very diff'erent struc- 

 ture : the second empty glume is larger than the others, and bears 

 on the back a fine horizontal point sometimes reduced _^to a small 

 tubercle ; the third and fourth glumes are small and empty, or 

 only enclose a palea ; the fifth or flowering glume ends in a fine 

 awn, and above it are one or two empty ones. 



6. Enteeopogon, ISTees, was founded on an East-Indian grass 

 with a single long, often incurved terminal spike ; otherwise very 

 near ChJoris except in some minor points. It now includes 

 Otenitim Seychellarum, Baker, from the Mauritius, which is scarcely 

 specifically distinct from the common East-Indian one, E. macro- 

 stacJiya, Munro {Ghloris macrosiachya^ Hochst.), from Abyssinia, 

 and an unpublished species from Mayotte in Madagascar, Boivin 

 n. 3019, which may be thus characterized : — H. leptophylla, Benth., 

 foliis angustissimis siccitate convoluto-subulatis, glumsB florentis 

 integrsB arista gluma ipsa longiore. The habit and the long 

 unilateral spike are precisely those of the common Indian E. me- 

 licoides ; but the leaves are very much narrower and scarcely 

 flattened in the lower part, the spikelets rather larger, the flower- 

 ing glume nearly 3 lines long, and the awn about g inch, and, 

 at least in the spikelets examined, the flowering glume is quite 

 entire, scarcely free at the point from the awn. 



