Family 1. TYPHACEAE 
By PERCY WILSON 
Simple-stemmed, monoecious, marsh or aquatic herbs, perennial by creep- 
ing rootstocks, with fibrous roots and erect terete stems. Leaves alternate, 
linear or strap-shaped, sheathing at the base, flat, more or less convex on the 
back, parallel-veined. Flowers densely crowded in compact cylindric spike- 
like racemes. Staminate inflorescence terminal, above the, pistillate and sep- 
arated from or contiguous to it; each raceme usually subtended in the early 
anthesis by a spathaceous fugacious bract. Staminate flowers irregularly inter- 
mingled with variously shaped hairs. Stamens 1-7; filaments short or long, 
free or connate; anthers linear or oblong, basifixed, 2-celled, longitudinally 
dehiscent ; pollen-grains simple or compound. Pistillate flowers ebracteolate 
or ningled with slender clavate or spatulate bracteoles, and often with abor- 
tive pistillate flowers mixed with them ; perianth composed of several delicate 
silky, simple or clavate hairs. Ovary usually 1-celled, more or less stalked, with 
a solitary pendulous ovule; style elongate, slender, erect ; stigma linear or 
spatulate, unilateral. Fruit minute, subsessile or long-stipitate, ellipsoid or 
subcylindric. Seed subcylindric or narrowly ellipsoid ; albumen farinaceous ; 
testa thin, membranaceous ; embryo cylindric, straight. 
1, TYPHA L,. Sp. Pl. 971. 1753. 
Characters of the family. 
Type species, 7ypha latifolia L. 
Racemes with staminate and pistillate portions usually separated; pollen of simple grains; fruit- 
ing pedicels short, rigid, 1 mm. or less. 1. 7. angustifolia. 
Racemes with staminate and pistillate portions usually contiguous; pollen- 
grains in 4’s; fruiting pedicels bristle-like, 2-3 mm. long. 2. T. latifolia. 
1. Typha angustifolia L. Sp. Pl. 971, 1753. 
Typha domingensis Pers. Syn. Pl. 2: 532. 1807. 
Typha spiralis Raf. Atl. Jour. 1: 148. 1832. 
Typha gracilis Raf. New Fl. 2: 91. 1837. 
Typha latifolia angustifolia Wood, Class Book 367. 1845. 
Typha angustifolia domingensis Griseb. Fl. Brit. W. Ind. 512. 1864, 
Typha americana ¥,, C. Rich.; Rohrb. Verh. Bot. Ver. Brand. 11: 97, as synonym. 1870. 
Typha bracteata Greene, Bull. Calif, Acad. 2: 413. 1887. 
Typha dominginensis Kronf. Verh. Zool.-Bot. Ges. Wien 39: 163. 1889. 
Typha angustifolia dominginensis Kronf. Verh. Zool.-Bot. Ges. Wien 39: 163, as synonym. 1889. 
Stems slender, 14 m. tall; leaves narrowly linear, 3-20 mm. broad ; racemes light- or 
dark-brown, the staminate and pistillate portions usually separated by a small interval, each 
1-4 dm. in length; pistillate portion with bractlets, 0.5-2 cm. in diameter; stigmas linear 
or oblong-linear ; hairs accompanying the pistillate flowers with or without club-shaped tips ; 
pollen-grains simple; the denuded rachis of the mature pistillate raceme slender, 3-4.5 
mm. thick, roughened by the short, rigid pedicels which are 1 mm. or less in length. 
TYPE LOCALITY : Europe. . : 
DISTRIBUTION : Marshes, chiefly along the coast, from Nova Scotia to Florida, and westward 
to California ; Mexico to Panama, Colombia, Guiana, and Patagonia; Bermuda, Bahamas, Greater 
Antilles, and Danish West Indies; also in Europe and Asia. ; 
ILLUSTRATIONS : Benth. Ill. Handb. Brit. Fl. 2: /. 932; Pratt, Fl. Pl. Great Brit. 3: pl. 234, 
f.2; Engl. Bot. fl. 1456, Britt. & Brown, Ill. Fl. /. 137; Coste, Fl. Fr. f. 3690; Bull. Torrey 
Club 15:6. 7. #9; Bild. Nord. Fl. pl. 494; Verh. Zool.-Bot. Ges. Wien 39: £1. 4, f. 8; Bull. 
Torrey Ciub 15: 7. f. 10-14; Engler, Pflanzenreich 4: 7. 4G; Curtis, Fl. Lond. 3: £1. 62 (as T. 
minor) ; Schkuhr, Handb. 3: pl. 287. 
VoLuME 17, Part 1, 1909] 3 
