Diplacrum.] CLVI. CYPERACEH (CLARKE). o11 
2. D. longifolium, C. B. Clarke in Durand & Schinz, Conspect. 
Fl. Afr. v. 669. Nearly glabrous. Stolons slender. Stem 20 in. long, 
robust, triquetrous. Leaves 24 by }-} in. Inflorescence of 5, distant, 
short-peduncled, axillary, globose, pale heads } in. in diam. ; bracts 6 in. 
long and upwards. Spikelets numerous, female ! in. long. Female 
glumes elliptic, mucronate, boat-shaped, many-ribbed, not winged on 
the keel. Nut about 3, in. long, white, smooth, with obscure longi- 
tudinal striations which partially anastomose.—Urban, Symb. Antill. ii. 
153. Pteroscleria longifolia, Griseb. Fl. Brit. West Ind. 579; Benth. 
fe Hook. Ic. Pl. t. 1347; 
Upper Guinea. Sierra Leone: marshy ground near Mofari, Scott-Elliot, 
4406 ! 
Frequent in Trinidad and Brazil. 
Scott-Elliot’s 4406 is the only piece of the section Pferoscleria yet obtained in 
the Old World. 
26. ERIOSPORA, A. Rich.; Benth. et Hook. f. Gen. Pl. iii. 1070. 
Spikelets very small, 2—3-flowered, collected in close spikes _ré- 
sembling the spikelets of Scirpus, mostly monecious, about 4-glumed ; 
lowest flower female, upper 1—2 male or sterile. Glumes ovate, boat- 
shaped, obscurely distichous, very minutely mucronulate, lowest empty, 
next female. Hypogynous hairs numerous, very fine, or (in Z. villosula) 
bristles much stouter. Stamens 3-1; anthers not crested. Nut from 
an ovoid base, tapering into an elongate conical trigonous beak (style- 
base); linear part of style short, persistent, branches 3, longer.— 
Perennials, with linear leaves. Stems with nodes their whole length 
bearing leaves or bracts. Spikes on slender peduncles in an elongate 
panicle, copious in the typical species, reduced in #. Oliveri to few 
spikes. 
Species 7, scattered through Tropical Africa, the Transvaal and Madagascar. 
The majority of the species of this extraordinary genus have the leaf-sheaths 
exactly like those of grasses; they are equitant, more or less distichous, deeply split 
down one side, with a ring of white hairs entirely simulating the ligule of grasses at 
the mouth. The illusion is so complete that where (as in many herbarium examples) 
the plant has been broken in half, a botantist dealing with a single sheet has de- 
scribed the EHriospora and assumed the basal half to be that of some grass 
accidentally pasted down on the same sheet, This hypothesis would at all events 
explain to some extent the way in which competent botanists have dealt with species 
of Eriospora. Still more surprising is it to findin Z. pilosa (and its var.) the leaf- 
sheath and ligule exactly as of Scleria. 
*SCLERIIFOLIZ.—Sheaths of the leaves triquetrous, with entire mouth closed by 
a short-ovate ligule ‘ : . ° : - . I. £. pilosa. 
**GRAMINIFOLIZ,—Sheaths of the leaves compressed, split deeply down one 
side, with a ring of short hairs in the mouth, 
Stems glabrous. Inflorescence copious, spikes exceed- 
ingly numerous, 
Spikes }-4 in. long, brown or chestnut . . . 
Spikes 4 in. long, yellowish-straw-colour ° . 
2. E. abyssinica, 
3. E. schweinfurthiana. 
