572 PLANTS JAVANICjE eahiobes. 



that the stamen belongs to the inner or complementary 

 series, which is rarely developed in triandrous genera. 

 One remarkable apparent exception to the usual order of 

 development of stamina occurs indeed in a genus of grasses 

 found in Abyssinia by Dr. Riippell, to whom I am indebted 

 for the specimens I have examined. In this genus the 

 locusta contains apparently a single flower, of which the 

 gluma consists of two minute obtuse nerveless valves ; the 

 perianthium is formed of two valves nearly equal in size, 

 form, texture, and nerves, which are three in number, the 

 middle nerve of each valve ending in a seta ; the stamina 

 are three in number, but instead of being inserted as I 

 have described those of triandrous grasses generally to 

 be, they are placed within the upper or inner valve, the 

 middle stamen being opposite to the median nerve ; the 

 embryo also is placed on the side of the inner valve : 

 hypogynous squamulse are entirely wanting. If the flower 

 here described be really simple, it would present a still 

 more formidable objection than Ataxia to the composition 

 of the inner valve of the perianthium. But the arrange- 

 ment of stamina, and direction of scutellum or embryo, 

 suggest another hypothesis with respect to the Abyssinian 

 genus ; namely, that the flower is not simple, but made 

 9] up of two flowers reduced to their, outer valves. This 

 latter view I am disposed to adopt, not only on consider- 

 ing the usual order of suppression of the parts of the 

 floral envelope in grasses ; but from the same degree of 

 reduction actually existing in several Paniceee, to which 

 primary division of Graminem the Abyssinian genus would 

 according to this view belong. It may be added that the 

 genus referred to very remarkably agrees, both in habit 

 and structure, with an unpublished genus discovered by 

 Ehrenberg, likewise in Abyssinia {Podopogon, Ehrenb. 

 MSS.), and which unquestionably belongs to this primary 

 division of the order. 



