18 CYPERUS JEMINICUS ROTTB. 



An annual. Leaves 1-2 in. long, 1£ in. broad ; stipules i in. ; 

 sepals I in. ; petals § in. long, rose-coloured. 



3. P. dissecta Bentk. in Journ. Linn. Soc. vi. 101 (Palava). 

 Palava fiexuosa Mast, in Gard. Chron. 1866, p. 435 ; Bot. Mag. t. 5768 ; 

 Kegel, 'Gartenflora, taf. 617. — Caule prostrato superne flexuoso, 

 foliis radicalibus oblongo ovatis, caulinis profunde bipinnatifidis 

 dissectisve lobis cuneato-oblongis obtusis, sepalis late ovatis acutis, 

 carpellis oblique obovatis rugoso-reticulatis. 



Hab. Peru, Maclean ! Cbili ! 



Stems 8-10 in. long; leaves 1-2 in. long, 1 in. broad; calyx 

 •| in. ; petals \ in. long. This plant was introduced into cultivation 

 by Messrs. Ve"itch in 1866. 



CYPERUS JEMIXICUS Rottb. 

 By C. B. Clarke. F.B.S. 



My attention has only lately been drawn to a paper by Dr. 

 Trimen in Journ. Bot. 1881, p. 358, criticizing my account of G. 

 Jeminicus Bottb. He makes three principal animadversions upon 

 me, viz. : — 



(1.) There is no sufficient proof that the plant in question is C. 

 Jeminicus Rottb., and therefore the name G. bullosas Vahl, has 

 priority. 



(2.) Each individual is as strictly an annual as other proliferous 

 bulbous plants, and its mode of growth is entirely different from 

 that of G. usitatus Burchell, (?. stoloniferus Retz., and others. 



(3.) The figures of C. B. Clarke in Journ. Linn. Soc. v. 21, t. 2, 

 figs. 17, 18, said to represent the rhizome of C. Jeminicus, are 

 wrong (Dr. Trimen is at a loss to guess what is intended by them). 



To these I would reply seriatim, as follows: — First, our plant 

 grows in Arabia ; Roxburgh referred the Indian bulbosus to it ; and 

 if the plant of Rottboell is not the Indian plant, nobody pretends 

 to say what it is. Dr. Trimen says generally, that neither Rott- 

 boell' s description nor his figure agrees well with our plant. I think 

 that C. Jeminicus is as certainly identified as most names of the 

 older authors where we have not got the specimen they figured or 

 described. Secondly, there are slender stolons, sometimes as 

 much as four inches long; on these are produced the "bulbils," 

 very commonly in clusters of two or three ; these produce culms 

 just as in the allied species, but usually in succession, so that in 

 the dried specimens we have frequently a culm nude at base, 

 because its own scales have fallen away, but with a bulbil close to 

 it often touching it. Sometimes, however, two closely touching 

 bulbils produce simultaneous culms. The manner of growth is 

 exactly as that of G. usitatus Burchell ; indeed, as I implied in my 

 paper, I have difficulty in separating the two species. In G. 

 usitatus the stolon is stouter, the bulbil larger, and the bulbil pro- 

 ducing the culm is usually a little remote from the next (still in the 



