124 



FIELD COLUMBIAN MUSEUM BOTANY, VOL 2. 



5-9 subdigitately spreading spikelets. Rachis short. Spikelets 



pale - brown, subterete, i x 10- 

 14 mm., 6-8-fruited. Rachilla 

 wings broad, enfolding the 

 achene. Scales distant nearly 

 half their length, little longer 

 than the achene, their sides en- 

 rolled, nearly meeting around the 

 the rachilla, pale-brown, dor- 

 sally convex, median stripe 

 broad, green, striate; all ovate, 

 subacute, and hyaline-margined. 

 Style longer than the achene, 

 divided to near the base. Achene 

 dark-brown, turbinate, .65-. 7 x 1.6 mm., more or less triangular in 

 section, the upper third of the dorsal facets concave, the lower con- 

 vex; the upper third of the ventral plane, the lower having promi- 

 nent rounded angles. Surface marked as in the preceding species, 

 but the pits shallower and the reticulations closer. 

 Ditches near Spot Bay, Grand Cayman (1296). 



SCLERIA Berg. 



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 subglobose, bony, supported on a 

 hypogynous disk. 



SCLERIA PTEROTA Presl. Oken. Isis, 21:268. 



Scleria communis Kunth. 



Schcenus latifolius Vahl. 



Bracts leaf-like, 5-10 cm. long, 

 cle, 2-2.5 x 5- l 5 cm - Rachis 3-sid- 

 ed, the angles winged. Secondary 

 panicles axillary, bractlets .5-1 cm. 

 long. Spike pediceled, composed 

 of 1-3 fertile spikelets below and i 

 staminate spikelet above; the fer- 

 tile 4 mm. long, 2 lower scales 

 empty; the staminate 5 mm. long. 

 Fruiting scales fuscous, orbicular, 

 mucronate, shorter than the achene; 

 lower empty scales of staminate flowers fuscous, ovate, mucronate; 

 stamen-bearing scales oblong, obtuse. Achene shining ivory-white, 

 depressed globose (exclusive of the hypogynum), 2.5 x 3 mm.; hypo- 

 gynum 1.5 mm. high, trilobate, pale straw-color above, reddish- 

 brown below. Achene in section nearly circular with no indication 

 of angles, the surface smooth, with a few scattered, white, micro- 

 scopic hairs. 



Moist spot in deep woods, high on the mountain, back of Char- 

 lotte Amalia, St. Thomas (506). 



Inflorescence a compound pani- 



