FLOKA OF BRITISH INDIA. 



Obdeb CLZXIII. CtnAV/tJNSZE. 



Erect deeumbent or creeping herbs, or in Tribe Bamhusets shrubs or 

 trues. Stem terete or compressed, jointed ; internodes solid or hollow. 

 Leaves simple, usually long and narrow, entire, parallel-nerved, with a 

 sheathing base distinct from the blade; sheath split to the base (very 

 rarely entire) with often a transverse hyaline erect appendage (Ugula) at 

 the union with the blade, facing the latter. Inflorescence terminal, rarely 

 alsofrom the upper sheaths, consisting of spioate racemed capitate or 

 panicled spikelets. Spikelets of three or more alternate distichous bracts 

 (glumes), of which the two lowest are normally empty, and the succeeding, 

 if more than one, are arranged on an axis (racMlla), and are all or soEne 

 of them flowering ; within each flowering glume and opposite to it is an 

 erect narrow 2-nerved, scale (palea), the margins of which are infolded 

 towards the glume and enclose at the base the true flower. Mower-i 

 uni- or bisexual, consisting of 2, rarelv 3 or 6 microscopic scales {lodiaules) 

 representing a perianth, and stamens or a pistil, or both. Stamens -i, 

 rarely 1 , 2, 6, or very rarely many, hy pogynoua ; flilaments capillary ; anthers 

 versatile, fugacious, of two parallel cells, with no apparent connective ; 

 pollen globose. Ovary entire, 1-celled ; styles 2, rarely 3, free or united at 

 the base, usually elongate, and exserted from the sides or top of the spike- 

 lets, clothed with simple or branched stigmatio hairs ; ovule erect, ana- 

 tropous. Fruit a seed-like utricle (grain) free within the flg. glume and 

 palea, or adherent to either or both ; pericarp very thin, rarely thick or 

 separable from the seed. Seed, erect; albumen copious, mealy; embryo 

 minute, at the base of and outside the albumen ; cotyledon soutelliform, 

 bearing on its face an erect conical plumule, and descending conical 

 radicle. 



Genera about 300 ; species estimatfid at about 3000, but many are doubtful, and 

 more mere varieties; natives of all climates and regions. 



In working up tbe grasses for this Flora, I find the multiplication of species 

 to have passed all bounds, and their nomenclature to be involved in a corresponding 

 degree. This has arisen from two principal causes, from authors not taking into 

 account tbe wide area over which the individual species of grasses range,* and from 

 the imperfection of the descriptions of the earlier and many later authors. It is 

 sixty-two years since Kunth published bis " Agroatograpbia Synoptica (Tubingen, 

 1833), which is an uncritical sweeping up of all previously known supposed genera and 

 species, with imperfect descriptions and synonyms. It was succeeded (in 1835) by a 

 second volume, in which a few hundred species of the first volume are very iully and 

 accurately described, ami valuable notes upon others are added. In 1855 Steudel's 

 "Synopsis Graminum " appeared. It in no respect advances, and in many ways 

 retards the student of the Order. Of more recent works on Graminem, three only 

 are of great mark, namely, Mnnro's very able Monograph of the Bamhusem (Trans. 

 Linn. Soc. vol. xxvi. (1868) ; Bentham's revision of the genera, Gen. Plant, vol. iii. 



* It is a fact familiar to every one who examines collections of plants from 

 hitberto unexplored countries, that novelties amongst the grasses are very few indeed, 

 compared with what occurs in other natural families. 



VOL. VII. B 



