CXLIII. CYPERACE E. 247 
or small scales. Stamens 3 or fewer or rarely 4 to 6 or indefinite ; fila- 
ments free, filiform or slightly flattened ; anthers usually exserted from 
the spikelet, attached by their base, oblong or linear, with 2 parallel 
sigmas. Fruit a small seed-like nut, flattened when the style is 2- 
cleft, more or less distinctly 3-angled when it is 3-cleft. Seed erect, 
albuminous, with a small lens-shaped globular or ovoid embryo in its 
base.—Heerbs often resembling in aspect the Restiaces or still more 
frequently the Graminez, but usually stiffer than the latter with solid 
„very rarely slightly hollow stems. When perennial the frm 
ely 
dried specimens taken at the time o flowering. Leaves 
tact apparently continuing the stem, or variously collected in simple 
ound spikes umbels or panicles ; when umbellate irregularly 
eing 
or compound 
<€ stem leaves, the others gradually smaller, the inner ones and some- 
times all small and glume-like. 
> large Order, abundantly distributed all over the globe, but more especially in 
en Situations or on the edges of waters. Of the 33 Australian genera 18, many 
hem numerous i i e New and the Old World either 
ic, all monotypic or of ‘very few species, besides Lepidosperma, a large 
t endemic, being represented elsewhere only by a single South Chinese 
The delimitatio š iie dati- 
butio Itaüon of the larger hermaphrodite genera of Cyperacez and the distri. 
group oftheir numerous ane as well as of the genera themselves into well-defined 
Breat 18 attended with peculiar difficulty. Although the characters separating the 
jority of genera Cyperus Scirpus and Sehanus are constant as to the great ma- 
* yet there few i 
Teferred es ye are a few intermedia w. ; 
to the one or to the other. Some of the characters relied upon by the great 
