THE INDIAN SPECIES OF ERIOCAULON. 135 



Iotroduction. 



The eriocaulace^: are a very distinct family of flowering plants 

 which in one respect occupies among the Monocotyledons a position 

 analagous to that of the compositae among the Dicotyledons The 

 flowers are very small and aggregated into a head, which is enclosed 

 at first and subsequently backed by a involucre of outer bracts. 

 Unlike the compositae the flowers are unisexual, and are typical- 

 ly complete in every other respect, that is they possess complete 

 whorls of sepals and petals, and either two of stamens or one of 

 carpels. The genus Eriocaulon with its three sepals, three petals, 

 and three carpels in the female flower ; and 3 sepals usually united into 

 a spathe-like calyx, a trumpet-shaped 3-lobed corolla and stamens 

 in the male, comes nearest to the monocotyledonous type : but we find 

 two-merous flowers in some species ; and in some, otherwise trime- 

 rous, two sepals only, or two or fewer petals, obviously by reduction. 



The genus was founded by Linnaeus in 1742, and subsequently 

 placed by Kunth along with one or two related genera as a tribe of 

 the order RESTIACE.E. Martius, reviewing this tribe in 1835, raised it 

 to the rank of a distinct order, the Eriocaulonaceae, a name afterwards 

 changed by Eichard to ERIOCAULACEAE. Koerniche wrote a mono- 

 graph with very full descriptions and several new species in 1856.* 

 Steudel gave short descriptions of all the known species in his 

 Syn. PI. Cyperacearum in 1858 and other authors, notably Sir J. D. 

 Hooker, have founded species in " Floras " of Ceylon, India, Tropical 

 Africa and Brazil. In 1903 there appeared in Engler's Das Pflanzen- 

 reich a monograph by Euhlaud of all the species known in the family, 

 with several new ones founded by him. The number of species des- 

 cribed was 420, of which 200 belonged to Paepalanthus found only in 

 America, and 193 to Eriocaulon. The latter genus is distributed all 

 over the warmer parts of the world, being found in America, Africa, 

 Asia and Australia, and even in Europe as far west as Ireland. But 

 although there are in India some fifty species, occurring over tho 

 whole of South India as for North as Mount Aboo and the Central 

 Provinces, and along the Himalayas from tho eastern end to Dehra 

 Dun, there are no collections from the United Provinces or the 

 Punjab. In India therefore excluding the Himalayas, the genus is 

 confined to the tropics. 



Most species of Eriocaulon grow exclusively in wet places, a 

 few only fully submerged, and only one or two I believe in ground 

 always dry enough to be firm. It has long been recognised that the 

 conditions of water and marsh are much more uniform the world over 



* Linuaea, Vol, XXVII. 



