C. H. Ostenfeld: Contributions to West Australian Botany. I. 17 



arranged in a circle around the air-channels and the central vein, 

 vary in number from 7 to 15. This difference between the species 

 I have been able to verify by examining several specimens of 

 both species, with this exception that the number of "lateral" veins 



Fig. 5. Cym. isoétifolia. Transverse sections of 

 leaf-blades, a, of foliage leaf, from Ceylon; b, of 

 foliage leaf from Carnarvon; c, of inflorescence 

 leaf from Carnarvon. The black points represent 

 the veins, the circles the lacunæ. (About sa f 1 

 nat. size.) 



Fig. 6. Cym. mana- 

 torum Aschers., from 

 St. Croix, Danish W. 

 Indies. Transverse sec- 

 tion of leaf-blade. 

 (About 20 / t nat. size.) 



in C. isoétifolia sometimes may be reduced to 4. The specimens from 

 Carnarvon had 6 — 7 lateral veins in the foliage leaves, but only 4 

 in the short leaf-blades of the inflorescences, and specimens from 

 Ceylon had 9 — 10 "lateral" veins (see Fig. 5). On the other 

 hand in all the leaves of C. manatorum from the West Indies 

 examined by me the number of lateral veins was only two (Fig. 6), 

 as stated by Sauvageau. We have thus in this character a 

 distinctive mark of value, 

 which is the more desirable 

 because the other characters 

 taken from the leaves do not 

 stand on closer examination. 

 The inflorescence of the 

 two species of the subgenus 

 Phycoschoenus is very charac- 

 teristic 1 , and is the same in 

 both species. The diagram- 

 matic figures (Fig. 7) of young 

 male and female inflorescences 

 from Carnarvon show their 

 cymose character better than 

 drawings of the inflorescences themselves (Fig. 4). The cyme 

 begins two-sided, but the younger parts are one-sided. The prim- 



Fig. 7. Cym. isoétifolia, from Carnarvon. 

 Diagrams of female and male inflor- 

 escences, with flowers, leafy-bracts and 

 prophylla. 



1 P. Magnus has described the inflorescence of C. manatorum in Sitzber. 

 Naturforsch. Freunde, Berlin, 19. März 1872. 



Dank Botanisk Arkiv, Bd. 2. Nr. 6. 2 



