305 . • . 



fixed by their ba»e, entire, 2-c'eIled. Ovary 1 -seeded, often surrounded by l)risiles called 

 hypogynous setae, probably constituting the rudiments of a perianthiura ; ovulum erect ; 

 style single, trifid, or bifid ; stiymas undivided, occasionally bifid. Nut crustaceous or bony. 

 Albumen of the same figure as the seed ; embryo lenticular, undivided, enclosed within the 

 base of the albumen ; plumula inconspicuous — Roots fibrous. Stems very often without 

 joints, 3-cornered, or taper. Leaves with their sheaths entire. The lowermost bracte» 

 often sterile. 



Affinities. These so nearly resemble the last tribe in appearance, 

 that the one may be readily mistaken for the other by incurious persons ; 

 they are, however, essentially distinguished by many important points of 

 structure. In the first place, their stems are solid and angular, not round 

 and fistular; there is no diaphragm at the articulations; their flowers are 

 destitute of any other covering than that afforded them by a single bractea,. 

 in the axilla of which they grow, with the exception of Carex, Uncinia, and 

 Diplacrum, in which 2 opposite glumes are added ; and, finally, the seed has 

 its embryo lying in one end of the albumen, within which its cotyledonar 

 extremity is enclosed, and not on the outside, as in Grasses ; a very important 

 fact, which it is the more necessary to point out, as Mr. Brown describes it 

 {Prodr. 212) as lenticular and placed on the outside of the albumen. The 

 additional glumes above adverted to form what Linnean botanists call the 

 nectary or arillus ! Mr. Brown mentions a case where these glumes, which 

 he calls a capsular perianlhium, included stamens instead of a pistillum. Ac- 

 cording to Turpin, rudiments of them sometimes appear in different species 

 of Mariscus. The close affinity of Cyperacese, on the one hand, to Grasses, 

 is sufficiently apparent ; on the other, they approach Junceise and Restiacese, 

 in the glumaceous state of the perianthium, and in general habit. They are 

 at once known from Restiacese by the sheaths of the leaves not being slit. 

 The species are extremely difficult to determine, and the distinctive characters 

 of the genera are unsatisfactory.* 



Geography. Found in marshes, ditches, and running streams, in 

 meadows and on heaths, in groves and forests, on the blowing sands of the 

 sea-shore, on the tops of mountains, from the arctic to the antarctic circle, 

 wherever Phsenogamous vegetation can exist, Humboldt remarks, that in 

 Lapland Cyperacese are equal to Graminese, but that thence, from the tem- 

 perate zone to the equator, in the northern hemisphere, the proportion of 

 Cyperacese to Gramineae very much diminishes. As we approach the line, 

 the character of the order also changes : Carex, Scirpus, Schcenus, and their 

 allies, cease to form the principal mass of the order, the room of which is 

 usurped by Cyperus, Kyllinga, Mariscus, and the like, genera comparatively 

 unknown in northern regions, or at least not forming any marked feature 

 in the vegetation. A few species are common to very different parts of the 

 world, as Scirpus triqueter and capitatus, and Fuirena umbellata, to New 

 Holland and South America, and several Scirpuses to Europe and the 

 southern hemisphere. 



. Properties. While Grasses are celebrated for their nutritive qualities,- 

 and for the abundance of faecula and sugar they contain. Sedges are little 

 less remarkable for the frequent absence of those principles : hence they are 

 scarcely eaten by cattle. The roots of Carex arenaria, disticha, and hirta, 

 have diaphoretic and demulcent properties, on which account they are called 

 German Sarsaparilla. Those of Cyperuses are succulent, and filled with a 

 nutritive and agreeable mucilage. In Cyperus longus a bitter principle is 



" It is to he hoped that much light will be thrown upon the subject by M. Prescott, of 

 St. Petersburgh, who has long been making these plants his especial study, and to whom 

 all botanists who wish well to science ought to confide whatever materials they may be abl« 

 to spare. 



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