TERMINOLOGY IN MONOCOTYLEDONS. 507 



empty glume of the spikelet. The next or upper empty glume or 

 scale, is very different from the lower one, being much larger, 

 broader, of a firmer consistence, and many-nerved; the third, or 

 flowering glume, is so close above it as to appear almost opposite, 

 and is very similar to it, except that it is sometimes larger, some- 

 times smaller, with one nerve more or less on each side. After 

 flowering, the short floral axis becomes articulate between or below 

 the empty glumes ; and the ripe caryopsis, or nut, in falling away, 

 carries with it the closely enveloping upper empty glume as well 

 as the flowering one ; and this it is which gave rise to the de- 

 fective expression u two flowering glumes." In some Kyllingce 

 there may be one or two additional small empty glumes below 

 or above the articulation ; and occasionally there is a second 

 flower, that, however, is not placed in the glume which is 

 immediately below the ordinary flowering one, but just above 

 the normal flower, apparently within the flowering glume, but 

 really on a slight prolongation of the axis of the spikelet, in the 

 axis of a small sometimes almost rudimentary glume. The two 

 nuts, like the single one, are enclosed immediately within the 

 normal flowering glume, and outside that, within the upper empty 

 glume; the second flower, when present, is usually male only. This 



double envelope of the ripe caryopsis does not, to my knowledge, 

 occur in any species of Cyperus ; and therefore I cannot concur 

 in the union of the two genera as proposed by F. Mueller. At 

 the same time the Kyllinga macrocephala, A. Eich., from Abyssinia, 

 and a few other several-flowered species, referred by some authors 

 to Kyllinga on account of their habit, may be better considered 

 as true Cyperi. 



Boeckeler describes as a prominent distinctive character of 

 Kyllinga the flower resting on a disk. I can find no expansion 

 of the torus or gynophore which could justify the use of that term ; 

 nor, indeed, can I realize what he had in view, unless it be the 

 persistent base of the floral axis, for which the word disk would 

 certainly be a misnomer (see Plate VIII. fig. 1)*. 



Herr Otto Boeckeler has, in vols. 35 to 39 of the Linnoea, described in detail 

 the whole of the Cyperaceae contained in the rich collections of the Royal Her- 

 barium, Berlin. As far as I have followed him, I have found him very accurate ; 

 and he has had access to authentic specimens, enabling him to clear up much 

 of the confusion created by Nees and by Steudel. If, therefore, I have 

 been led to make some critical observations on some of the terms he has used, 

 and if I cannot agree with him as to the distinctness of some of the forms he 

 has admitted as species, I am far from wishing to detract from the great value 

 of his work. 



