Glumales.] 



CYPERACE^.. 



117 



(^^ 



Order XXX. CYPERACEiE. Sedges. 



Cyperolieae, Jiiss. Gox. 26. (1789).— Cyperacese, R. Brown Prodr. 212. (1810) ; Lestiboudois, Essal ■ 

 Nees von Esenbeck in Liumea, 9. 273 ; Endl. Gen. xliii. ; Meisner, p. 110 ; Kunth. Enum. vol. 2 ; 

 Kees ab Esenb. in Fl. Bras. fuse. 4. 



Diagnosis. — Glumal Endogens with icliole leaf-sheaths, a one-celled ovary, and an emlryo 

 enclosed ^oithin the base of the albumen. 

 Grass-like herbs, growing iii tufts and never acquiring a shrubby condition. The 

 stems are never hollow, and seldom have any partitions at their nodes ; they are fre- 

 quently angular, and ai*e sometimes enlarged at the base mto conns or tubers. The 



leaves are narrow or taper, and, when 

 they wrap round the stem m the form of 

 a sheath,^ never have that sheath slit. 

 Flowers ^ or ^ $ , consisting of unbri- 

 cated solitary bracts, of which the lower- 

 most are often empty, very rarely enclos- 

 mg other opposite bracts at right angles 

 A^ith the first, and called glumes. Calyx 

 none. Stamens hypogynous, definite, 1, 

 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 12 ; anthers fixed by 

 their base, entire, 2-celled. Ovary 1- 

 seeded, often suiTounded by bristles called 

 ^lypogyuous setse ; ovule erect, anati^o- 

 pal ; style single, trifid, or bifid ; stigmas 

 undi\dded, occasionally bifid. Nut cinis- 

 taceous or bony. Albumen fleshy or 

 mealy, of the same figure as the seed ; 

 embryo lenticular, midivided, enclosed 

 withm the base of the albumen ; plumule 

 inconspicuous. 



Sedges so nearly resemble Grasses in 

 appearance, that the one may be readily 

 mistaken for the other by incm-ious per- 

 sons ; they are, however* essentially dis- 

 tmguished by many important points of 

 sti-ucture. In the first place, their stems 

 are usually angular, not romid and fis- 

 tular ; there is 

 no diaplu-agm 

 at the articula- 

 tions ; their 

 flowers are des- 

 titute of any 

 other covei'ing 

 than that aff'ord- 

 ed them by a single bract, in the axil 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 em- 

 bryo lying in the base of the albumen, within which its cotyle- 

 donar exti*emity is enclosed, and not on ihe outside, as in 

 Grasses ; a very impoi'tant fact, which it is the more necessary 

 to point out, since Brown describes it {Prodr. 212) as lenticular 

 and placed on the outside of the albumen. The additional 

 glumes above adverted to form what Linnaean botanists call 

 the nectary or ai-il ! Brown mentions a case where these 

 glumes, which he calls a capsular perianth, included stamens 

 instead of a pistil. According to Tm-pin, rudiments of the 



Fig. LXXVIII. 



Fig. LXXIX. 



Fig. LXXVIII.— Scirpus lacustris. 1. A flower surrounded with hypogynous bristles ; 2. a seed; 

 a section of it, showing the lenticular embryo. 



Fig .LXXIX.— Utricle or additional glumes of Calyx rivularis. 



