MR. O. BENTHAM ON GRAMINEjE. 127 



following are the most prominent groups established as sections 

 or proposed by some as independent genera: — 1. Vulpia, Gmel. 

 {Mygalurus, Link), panicle narrow, dense, and usually unilateral, 

 the outer glumes very unequal, one often minute or almost obso- 

 lete, the flowering glumes awned, and frequently, but not always, 

 only one stamen. If we had only the common European species, 

 this might well have been kept up as a genus ; but in the South- 

 American F. ulochteia, Doell, and Jl leptothrix, Trin., the panicle 

 is loose, as in Mufestuca, and in F. delicatula. Lag., F. setacea, 

 Parlat., the awn is sometimes very short and the inflorescence 

 rather that of Eufestuca. The proportions of the outer glumes 

 vary from species to species. 2. Eufestuca, comprises the greater 

 number of the species, with a loose, spreading or narrow panicle, 

 the outer glumes nearly equal, the ilowering ones acute or mu- 

 cronate, rarely short-awned, and three stamens. Amongst them 

 Grrisebaeh has distinguished a section PhceocMoa, with the ovary 

 slightly hairy at the top as in Bromus : but the character is very 

 variable in F. sylvatica, F. varia, and their allies. Doell has pro- 

 posed a section Mallopetalum for the Brazilian F. ampliflora, 

 Doell, apparently the same as the Mexican F. amplissima, Rupr., 

 characterized by the lodicules villous at the top. I find these 

 lodicules fringed with long hairs at the top exactly as in F.fim- 

 Iriata, Nees, which Doell places amongst his Festucce legitimcB 

 with glabrous lodicules. Selleria, Fourn., is proposed as a genus 

 for the Mexican Bromus lividus, H. B. K., which Sprengel after- 

 wards and Kunth himself removed to Festuca, of which it has all 

 the characters of the awned species. The inflorescence is at first 

 very like that of some varieties of Bromus tentorum ; but as it 

 advances the spikelets become very much divaricate or refiexed, 

 giving the plant a peculiar habit. 3. Schedonorus, Beauv. {Am- 

 phigenes, Janka), comprises F. pratensis, Huds., F. sylvatica. 

 Host, F. nutans, Host, F. littoralis, LabilL, F. Hookeriana and 

 F. scirpoidea, P. Muell., and a few others, tall plants, with loose, 

 narrow or spreading panicles, awnless glumes, and the grain quite 

 free from the palea, thus connecting the genus with Poa. Fries 

 and other Swedish botanists, whilst they rightly referred Beau- 

 vois's species of Schedonorus back to Festuca, transferred his generic 

 name to a very difi'erent group, which now forms the sections 

 Festueoides and Stenobromus of Bromus. 4. Gatapodium, Link, 

 including Micropyrum, Link, differs from Fufestuca in the inflo- 

 rescence, which is nearly the simple spike of Hordeese ; but the 



