TRIANDRIA— MONOGYNIA. Schcenus. 51 



times 1 or 2, sometimes 4 or 6, very rarely 12;" their 

 Jilaments either capillary, or flat, lax and spreading, pro- 

 ceeding from the receptacle beneath the germen ; anthers 

 attached by the base, linear, undivided, mostly pendulous, 

 of 2 cells, bursting lengthwise. Germen with the rudiment 

 of a single kernel only, which is attached by its base to the 

 bottom ; style cylindrical, or more commonly triangular, 

 finally separating, either at the base, or more usually at a 

 joint, a little way up, leaving the lower part to form a beak 

 to the seed ; stigmas linear, downy, rarely cloven. Seed 

 hard, often polished, coloured, and dotted, with as many 

 angles as there are stigmas ; its chief bulk consisting of a 

 firm albumen of the same shape; embryo simple, orbicular, 

 flattened, situated in the base of the seed, on the outside 

 of the albumen, as Mr. Brown observes in opposition to 

 Gaertner, who, with Jussieu, describes this organ as within 

 the albumen ; plwmda not discernible. 



The Jlowers are ranged in spikes, various in length; the 

 lower glumes of which are, many of them, in some cases, 

 abortive and destitute of any organs of fecundation. 



I think nothing is gained by calling the seed of these plants 

 a nut, on account of its hardness, which is but compara- 

 tive ; there being no supernumerary integument to distin- 

 guish this seed from others, acknowledged to be simple 

 and naked.] 



Schcenus. 



Spike of 1 — 3 Jlowers, subtended by numerous, smaller, 

 empty, keeled, folded, crowded glumes, in 2 opposite 

 ranks. Cor. none. Filam. capillary, longer than the 

 glumes. Anth. linear, erect. Germ, superior, roundish, 

 more or less triangular, with or without a few rough 

 bristles, shorter than its own glume, underneath. Style 

 capillary, simple and without a joint at the base, deci- 

 duous. Stigm. 3, acute, feathery. Seed the shape of the 

 germen, hard, loose, simply pointed. 



Root scarcely creeping. Stems erect, rushy, round or tri- 

 angular, without joints, leafy chiefly at the base. Leaves 

 sheathing, rigid. Spikes aggregate, brownish. The bristles 

 under the germen are present or not, in species otherwise 

 so nearly akin, that they appear scarcely to mark even 

 natural sections of the genus. The same is the case in 

 Scirpus. 



e 2 



