84 



FIELD COLUMBIAN MUSEUM BOTANY, VOL. III. 



SCLERIA Berg. Kongl. Acad. Sv. Handl. 26:142. 



Flowers all unisexual; staminate and pistillate spikelets separate 

 or borne in the same cluster. Fertile spikelet i -flowered; staminate 

 many-flowered. Scales imbricated, the lower empty. Bristles none. 

 Stamen i. Style 3-cleft; achene bony, supported on a hypogynous 

 disk or hypogynium obsolete. 



Scleria lithosperma (L.) Swartz Prod. 18. 

 Scirpus lithospennus L. 



Bracts leaf-like, 6 10 cm. long. Inflorescence a slender few-flow- 

 ered panicle, 12-20 cm. long; branches distant, 3-6 cm. long; rachis 



minutely pubes- 

 cent, 3 -angled. 

 Fascicles of spike- 

 lets .5-2 cm., dis- 

 tant; staminate 

 spikelets 5 mm. 

 long, reddish- 

 brown or green ; 

 fertile spikelets 

 4 mm.; glumes 4, 

 reddish, subulate, 

 the outer 6-7 mm. , 

 the inner 4-5 mm. 

 long. Achene 

 shining-white, mar- 

 ble-like, 1.8 x 2.5 

 mm., obovoid with 

 a triangular base, 



excavated between the broad angles; hypogynium reduced to a red- 

 dish line at the base; achene in section orbicular above, triangular 

 below. The surface of the achene is sometimes minutely rugose but 

 the wrinkles disappear when fruit is fully ripe. 



Hab. Abundant, San Felipe, Gaumer 1400, Pocoboch 



