72 MONOECIA— TRIANDRIA. Typlia. 



Root stout^ creeping, furnished with many thick hairy fibres. Herb 

 smooth. Stems about 6 feet high, erect, round, solid, perfectly 

 straight and simple, without joint or knot, leafy at the very 

 bottom only. Leaves several, upright, almost as tall as the stems, 

 linear, entire, tapering to a bluntish point ; rather convex at 

 the back ; slightly concave in front j their bases sheathing, Avith 

 a blunt membranous edge ; the outer ones short and abortive. 

 Catkin terminal, erect, about a foot long, uninterrupted ; the 

 barren part longest and thickest while in blossom, and furnished 

 with a few scattered lanceolate scales. After the yellow stajuens 

 have fallen, the fertile part swells, becomes of a dark brown, 

 and an inch thick, resembling coarse plush, finally dissolving 

 into a mass of innumerable minute seeds, each winged under- 

 neath with fine hairs, and carried away by the wind. Haller 

 says this downy substance serves to stuff pillows. 



2. T. angusti/oiia. Lesser Cat's-tail or Reed-mace. 



Leaves slightly semicylindrical; channelled above. Barren 

 catkin separated from the fertile one. Receptacle scaly. 



T. angustifolia. Linn. Sp. PL 1377. Willd. v. 4. 198. Fl. Br. 959. 

 Engl. Bot. t'. 21. t. 1456. Hook. Scot. 259. Fl. Dan. t. 815. 



T, minor. Curt. Lond.fasc. 3. t. 62, 



T. n. 1306. Hall. Hist. v. 2. 163. 



T. palustris media, Raii Syn. 436. Bauh. Hist. v. 2. 540. Moris. 

 v.3.246. sect. 8. t. 13. f. 2. 



T. palustris clava gracili. Bauh. Pin. 20. Theatr. 340./. 



In pools and ditches, less frequent than the foregoing. 



About the middle of Woolwich Common. Curtis. In clay-pits 

 near Bungay. Mr. Woodward. Between Norwich and Hing- 

 ham, and in some other parts of Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex. 



Perennial. June, July. 



Like the T. latifolia in general habit, but much more slender. 

 Leaves not half so broad, but more concave ; semicylindrical in 

 their lower part. There is a smooth naked portion of the stem, 

 from I an inch to an inch, between the barren and fertile cat- 

 kins, and the common receptacle of both is rather scaly, or tu- 

 berculated, than hairy. 



The Rev. Revett Sheppard found, in the marshes of Great Oakley, 

 Essex, what seems a variety of this species, growing among the 

 latifolia, having much thicker fertile catkins than such as grew 

 in the neighbourhood of Little Oakley unaccompanied by the 

 latifolia. The receptacle in these specimens however agrees 

 with angustifolia, and there is a naked space above the fertile 

 catkin. Mr. Sheppard suspected the pollen of the neighbouring 

 large species might have affected these catkins, or it may per- 

 haps be conjectured that they were the ))rodLice of mule plants. 



