193 



ON SPARGANIUM NEGLECTUM. 

 By W. H. Beeby. 



(Tab. 258.) 



Sparganium NEGLECTUM Beebj (Journ. Bot. 1885, p. 26). — Eoot- 

 stock soboliferous. Eoot-leaves 3-5 feet long, triquetrous at their 

 base, channeled on the upper side and keeled almost throughout, 

 rigid, erect, never flaccid nor floating even in running water, 

 exceeding the flower stem. Stem-leaves, which are somewhat 

 channeled in their lower half, and bracts, usually keeled to their 

 apex. Inflorescence a compound spike, each branch bearing 1-3 

 female heads with many male heads above them. Fruit nearly or 

 quite sessile, obovate-pointed, sometimes narrowly so, or when two- 

 seeded roundly obovate, generally rather more than twice as long 

 as broad (excl. l)eak), not truncate, but narrowed gradually into 

 the beak,* which is |— f, commonly -|, the length of the fruit 

 itself; slightly obtusangular by compression, with a terete trans- 

 verse section, its epicarp of numerous small cells, which continue 

 dense and compact in the ripe fruit, and thus conceal the ridges of 

 the endocarp. Female perianth scales linear, with a broad spathu- 

 late apex. Herbage drying a more or less pale green. 



The habit is much that of S. ramosxua Curt., which, however, 

 differs from the above conspicuously in the form of the fruit, as 

 well as in the structure of its ei^icarp, which is composed of a few 

 large loose cells ; in the ripe fruit these collapse somewhat into the 

 furrows between the ridges of the endocarp, thus allowing the 

 latter to be prominent, and giving to the fruit its angular appear- 

 ance and irregular transverse section. The female perianth scales 

 are mostly ligulate, more membranous, and scarcely or not at all 

 enlarged at the apex, and the fruit is more frequently two-seeded 

 than in S. ncglectum. The upper leaves and bracts are less harsh 

 and more leathery in texture, the latter usually quite without a 

 keel, and drying blackish or olive-green. 



No allusion to the fruit is made by Hudson (Fl. Ang. ii. p. 401) 

 in his description of S. ramosum, and his plant may perhaps best 

 be regarded as an aggregate, including that now described and the 

 S. ramosxLin Curtis (Fl. Lond. f. 5, pi. 342, and description), which 

 latter is also the ramosum of Syme (E. B. iii.), and apparently of 

 most authors. I do not now feel sure which plant is represented 

 by Reichenbach's plate (see p. 26, ante). The description by 

 Leighton (Fl. Shropshire), " h'uit ovate-acuminate, angular by 

 compression,' and that of Garcke (Fl. Nord und Mittel Deutsch- 

 land), " fruit long-beaked," point to the present plant as the one 

 actually seen by those authors ; and these are the only references 

 I have met with which seem applicable to nci/lectum. 



I do not find that S. nci/lectwii has any characters in common 

 with <S. siiiipJex beyond the pointed apex to the fruit and its 

 long beak. 



* The term beak is restricted to the persistent style, exclusive of the stigma, 

 which is also sometimes persistent. 



Journal of Botany. — Vol. 23. [July, 1885.] o 



