100 ON THE SOURCES OF THE "CHINA MATTING. 



in diameter when bound, and sells at about twenty cents a bundle, 

 for good quality. One of these will make four bed-mats when 

 woven. The rush, bemg round, must be flattened before used ; this 

 is accomplished by beating it with a heavy piece of wood, about four 

 feet long, bearing a general resemblance to a stout paviour's 

 rammer, or a small pile-driver. As you approach some of the 

 villages near Shiu-hing the noise of beating the rushes resounds on 

 every side, and reminds one of the busy hum of a factory. This 

 work of flattening the rush, as well as the subsequent plaiting, is 

 done by women and girls, who receive from seventeen to nineteen 

 cash* for making a mat for salt-bags, &c., and twenty-two to thirty 

 cash for making a bed-mat. The rush is given out by the shops, 

 and the women are paid according to the work done. The shop- 

 keepers make a good profit, as they pay twenty cents a bundle to 

 the cultivator, and about ten cents for making five mats, which will 

 sell for from sixty to seventy-five cents. These mats are used for 

 making the mat sails of all the native junks in this part of China." 

 It was with no small surprise that I found, on examining the 

 ^ plant submitted to me, that it was referable to Le^ironia mucronata, 

 Eich., variously located by authors in the tribes Chrysitrichefs, 

 HypolytrecB, or Scleriea of Cyperacese, and recorded as a native of 

 Ceylon, several islands of the Indian Archipelago, Australia and 

 Madagascar, but nowhere, so far as I can find, regarded as a " planta 

 usualis." Of this a carefully drawn up character was given ten 

 years ago by that excellent botanist the late Mr. Kurz ; f but as, in 

 view of the acute arguments of Mr. Bentham, \ and the manifest 

 affinity of the genus with Mapania and Diplasia, it seems impossible 

 to adopt R. Brown's view § of the floral structure, acquiesced in by 

 Kurz, I think it may not be amiss to subjoin the one noted down 

 by myself in 1874, from the living plant, unbiassed by 

 theoretical considerations as to homologies, and without having read 

 Kurz's character ; and I should add that my friend the Eev. J. C. 

 Nevin, whose departure for California is a sad loss to Chinese 

 botany, carefully investigated, later than and independently of 

 myself, the structure of the flowers, of which he kindly gave me 

 nicety executed analyses, accurately drawn to scale: — Ehizomate 

 repente squamis nigricantibus dense obsesso deorsum fibras fili 

 emporetici crassitie emittenti, culmis confertissimis basi squamis 

 4-6 ovatis v. ovato-lanceolatis acutiusculis fusco-nigricantibus 

 circumdatis vaginisque 2-3 eos arete amplexantibus (quarum 

 suprema semipedalis apice sphacelata) auctis ceterum aphyllis 4-7 

 pedalibus teretibus isthmis cellulosis intervallo 3-6 linearum 

 sejunctis articulatis siccatione inde subnodulosis basi pennas 

 anseriiiff) circiter crassitie apicem versus sensim attenuatis, spicula 

 latcrali solitaria sessili oblonga obtusa 6-lineali pollicem crrciter a 



* Twenty-five cash are about equal to one penny. 

 + ' Journ. As. See. Bengal,' xxxviii. pt. ii., 77. 

 + 'Journ. Linn. Soc' Bot., xv. 511. 



§ ' Protlroin. fl. Nov. Holl.,' snl) ChoiKlrachne. (fsis od. p.8;{3.!> ]Miscell.AVorks. 

 ed. Bennett, i. 145. 



