28 MB. C. B. CLABKE ON INDIAN SPECIES OF CYPEBUS. 



The generic character given Anosporum by Boeckeler can only be 

 made to include this species by enormous inferences from com- 

 parison with Cyperus cephalotes. There is no more development 

 of pedicel than in many other Cyperi : the style is deciduous, 

 with three branches, essentially as of ordinary Cyperi ; but it is 

 somewhat short, thick, and more papillose than usual in Cyperus 

 (Fimbristylis-like), whence B.. Brown took his good specific name. 

 As to the corky alteration of the cells, it is very similar to that in 

 C. cephalotes ; but it does not separate by fissures into three scales 

 (as in C cephalotes), though there is a kind of indication of sepa- 

 ration if the nut is compared side by side with that of C. cepha- 

 lotes. On the back of the nut the straw-coloured alteration of 

 the cells proceeds over the whole surface (Benth. et Hook. f. Gen. 

 PI. iii. p. 1044); but the change only extends to the outermost 

 layer of cells in the centre of the back, while it comprises the 

 whole of the margins of the nut. The change in the nature of 

 the cells where it extends only one layer deep can be easily exa- 

 mined, and is exactly similar to that which takes place in the 

 outermost layer of cells of the nuts of various Cyperaceae. 



It does not appear to me that Anosporum can be maintained 

 either as a section or a subsection if this species be placed in it. 

 It has neither the pedicel, the permanent style, nor the entire 

 stigma. The inflorescence is entirely remote. Steudel, no other- 

 wise than Bentham, is right in placing it somewhere near Kunth's 

 Alternifolii, of which it has the umbel, digitate spikelets, and 

 subexalate rhachilla. 



I would venture the suggestion that the resemblance of these 

 two species in the nut is accidental to their present habitat, and 

 not a mark of common cousinship. The nuts of most Cyperi 

 (even after years in a dry herbarium) sink in water, and remain 

 sunk ; when they drop into the rice-sea, they sink to the mud at 

 the bottom, where they germinate. But C. cephalotes (C. natans, 

 Buch.-Ham.) and C.platystylis (C.Jluitans, Buch.-Ham.) are tank- 

 floaters ; their roots are entangled in tbe mass of rotten Pistia, 

 Salvinia, &c. in overgrown tanks. Their nuts float in water (and 

 remain floating, as I find experimentally), so that they can ger- 

 minate in their proper nidus. 



Parag. 2. On Cyperus pygmaeus and Isolepis Micheliana. 



Cyperus pygmaus, Eottb., and Isolepis pygmcea are treated by 

 Kunth (Enum. pp. 18, 203) as two plants, belonging to remote 



