676 CLXXIL CYPERACEM. (C. B. Clarke.) 
18. LEPIDOSPERMA, Labill. 
Glabrous, rigid, robust stoloniferous plants. Stems leafy only, We 
base. Panicle of many spikelets, often oblong, contracted. Spike "i 
5-10 glumes, of 2-3 axillary flowers, rarely producing more than Nd 
lowest flower being always sterile (i. e. maleor pistil imperfect). 5 E» 
(even young) similar to the lower empty glumes. Hypogynous e th} 
short, ovate with a triangular or setaceous tip. Stamens 3. Sty lab ous 
long branches; style-base glabrous or nearly so, fused iuto the g nat 
smooth trigonous nut.—Species 36, all Australasian except the present. 
L. chinense, Nees & Meyen in Linnea, ix. 302, and in ien 
Nat. Cur, xix. (Suppl. i) 117; stems robust terete, leaves mostly long sub. 
panicle oblong dense, spikelets clustered, glumes lanceolate ac ‘Boeck. 
distichous, style 3-fid, nut Aen in. obtuse. Benth. Fl. Hongk. 398 ; 
in Linnea, xxxviii. 329 (excl. L. confine). a Chi 
Matacca; Mt. Ophir, Griffith (Kew Distrib. 6115).—Distrrs. S. China. 
Stems 2-3 ft. GR Panicle 2-4 by 1 in., very dense, base sarve M 
interrupted. Glumes 5-7, lower distichous, 1-2 highest spiral tabescen arce ył 
3-2, lowest sterile, upper perfect nut-bearing. Hypogynous bristles « Flowers 3, 
length of glume, easily overlooked in young flowers.—Bentham SyS, ich is male, 
lowest fertile.” Nees says, * Glumes empty except the penultimate wa “inal thin 
and the terminal thin one ? (which Nees supposes nut-bearing). The ter 
glume is sterile, the penultimate perfect, nut-bearing. 
19. GAHNIA, J. R. & G. Forst. 
. ve 
Coarse, usually scabrous, perennials. Stem with nodes, bearing wear 
or leaf-like bracts throughout its length. Panicle copions, dà. upper 
oblong. Spikelets clustered, often black or dark brown, 1-2 yr more 
alone nut-hearing. G/umes imbricated on all sides, lower 3-5 (Or altered 
empty, keeled, often mucronate, hispid, upper gradually larger, ` sma 
1n fruit; the top 3 (or 2) glumes heteromorphous, in young fi deg 
(»sually not 3 length of uppermost keeled empty glume) subd hetero- 
scarcely nerved, in fruit enlarged rigid brown or black ; lowe eromor- 
morphous glume with 3-6 (often 4) stamens or empty, second ty or % 
phous glume with 3 stamens perfecting a nut, uppermost enh du 
Hypogynous bristles 0. Filaments long (often elongated 10 frui 3 (or 4 
the nut); anthers crested. Style slender, glabrous ; branches." poin 
long; style-base continuous with pistil, often a small black conic from 
to the nut. Mut bony, round or trigonous, sessile. — Species ^^ 
Singapore to the Sandwich Isles, abounding in Australasia. 
. + Colenso in 
The structure of the spicula of Gahnia has been recently described PY o those 
Trans. N. Zen). Inst. xviii, 278, and by Hillebrand in Flora Hawan, 451. rs 
^ ype! = 
species (and specimens) which have but one flower in the spikelet, that flower prt 
terminal and the three small heteromorphous glumes (scales) appear as 
of 3 imbricated sı gments, But the cases where the above three glumes 
flowers (both of which may be pistilliferous though only the uppe 
negative this explanation. 
G. javanica, Voritzi Verz. Zoll. Pë 98; tall, leaves longs 
very scabrous, panicle oblong-linear dense, spikelets 2-1- d. n Jinn 
3-fid, nut linear-oblong shining brown black-tinped. Boeck. 1 i 
Xixwiu. 339. Phakellanthus multiflorus, Zoll. Syst. Verz. Jud: 
D 
