218 DR. M. T. MASTERS ON THE MORPHOLOGY 
in spiral series, the number of scales in each cycle being different 
in different species. In R. guinguefarius, N. ab E., the scales 
are arranged in five well-marked vertical ranks, separated one 
from another by deep grooves*. 
The male flowers, as also the immature female ones, are com- 
pressed from back to front, and are straight, or so curved as to be 
convex on the surface nearest the bract, while their outline gene- 
rally coincides with that of the protecting bract. 
The peculiar form of the florets is due to pressure against 
the axis; it exactly resembles the form of the unexpanded buds 
of the garden hyacinth while they remain closely packed and 
pressed up against the axis. Moreover, in Boeckhia, Willdenovia, 
and some other genera of this order, where the female flowers are 
solitary and placed upon or near to the extremity of the axis, and 
where in consequence the flowers are not subject to compression, 
the florets have not the flattened form that they have in Kestio. 
The same rule applies to species of Elegia, Lepyrodia, and in fact 
to all wherein, from whatever cause, no pressure is exerted on the 
flowers. 
The flowers themselves vary much in size in reference to the 
bracts, sometimes even exceeding the latter organ. When the 
capsule is ripe, the florets are necessarily altered in form and 
become more or less spheroidal. The florets are sessile within 
the bracts, or placed on very short stalks, in which latter case the 
inflorescence is not strictly spicate, though it would in practice 
be an unnecessary refinement to consider the inflorescence as 
other than a spike. 
Each flower or floret (I use the two words indifferently in this 
case) consists of a perianth of six, or rarely of four glumes, 
arranged in two rows. The outer series consists of three pieces, 
placed in such a manner that one is central and anterior or next to 
the bract, and two lateral and somewhat posterior: the anterior one 
is usually flat or only slightly convex; the two lateral ones are 
conduplicate, boat-shaped, and marked in the centre of the dorsal 
surface by a projecting central nerve or carina, which is very 
generally clothed with woolly hairs. The three inner glumes alter- 
nate in position with the outer ones, and usually resemble the 
anterior glume in shape, but are of thinner texture. In some 
species, as R. triticeus, the inner glumes are slightly coherent at 
the base, in others each glume is thickened at the lower end. In 
the female flowers, especially of the two-styled section, it often 
* Cfr. A. Braun, Nov. Act. Acad. Nat. Cur. xv. p. 2. 
