SUPPLEMENT. 



THE FAMILIES OF FLOWERING PLANTS. 



By Charles Louts Pollard. 

 CHAPTER IV. (^Continued.) 



THE family Cyperaceae, or Sedge family, is less extensive than the 

 Grass family, embracing 75 genera and about 2800 species, 700 

 of which are contained in the sinole wenus Carer. Sedges are 

 widely distributed over the globe, some genera being characteristic of 

 arctic or high alpine regions, while others form impenetrable jungles or 



"brakes'" in tropical swamps. 

 The larger proportion of the 

 species prefer wet ground, al- 

 though many of our commonest 

 forms may be found along dry 

 roadsides or in upland meadows. 

 The economic uses of these 

 plants are not very extensive. 

 The stems of the common bul- 

 rush, Scirjnis lacitstris afford 

 material for the manufacture of 

 mats, baskets, and the so-called 

 "rush-bottomed'*' chairs; while 

 certain species of Carer and 

 Cyperus are not without value 

 as forage plants. Many sedges 

 growing along the sea coast 

 Fig. 28.— striiw-eoiored cyperus (C'y;j«v<»'^'<//f/o- perform important scrvicc as 



sus.) After Britton and Brown, 111. Fl. Northern ,, i i • i n 



U.S. "sand binders. 



There are man}^ points of 

 similarity in tloral structure between the sedges and the grasses. In 



