134 MB. G. BENTHAM ON GEAMINEJE. 



12. AsPEELLA, Willd. {Systrioo, MoencL, Qymnostichum, 

 Schreb.), has three species, of wliicli two are Nortli-American, 

 tte third from New Zealand. There are two or three collateral 

 spikelets to each notch as in the preceding genera ; but the outer 

 empty glumes are entirely deficient, except sometimes one or two 

 slender ones to the lower spikelets of the spike. Willdenow's 

 name has the priority over Schreber's ; for although the Beschrei- 

 bungen of the latter author bears the date 1769 on the titlepage, 

 the third part, in which the present genus was proposed, was 

 only issued in 1810. 



Tribe XIV. Bambuse^. 



The Bamboos have been so admirably monographed by Munro 

 in the twenty-sixth volume of the Linnean ' Transactions,' that 

 I have very few notes to make on the present occasion. Since 

 the appearance of that memoir, Balansa has published a New- 

 Caledonian Bamboo forming the distinct genus Greslania ; a fur- 

 ther acquaintance with Thamnocalamus has induced its reunion 

 with Arvmdinaria ; and, on the other hand, Merostaohys capitata. 

 Hook., is so very different in inflorescence from the rest of the 

 genus, that I have proposed to separate it under the name of 

 Achroostaehys. I have also proposed as a new genus Melocala- 

 mus, the Pseudostachyitm oompaetiflorum, Kurz, published since 

 Munro's monograph. There is also much confusion in the generic 

 term BeesTia, which, though used by Eheede for a Peninsular 

 species of Bamboo, was first characterized by Kunth chiefly from 

 the more eastern Bamhusa laccifera, Eoxb., now Melocanna lam- 

 lusoides. He did indeed also include the Peninsular and Ceylon 

 species ; but that was first properly characterized as a separate 

 genus by Thwaites, under the name of Ochlandra, which it seems 

 advisable to adopt, though the genus may include Eheede's Beesha, 

 a name which it seems best to consider only in the specific sense 

 first given to it. 



