388 THE STORY OF PLANT LIFE 

 88. The Sedge Group (Summary). 



{Introductory Volume^ p. 21^) 



In the Order Cyperaceae are included amongst 

 British types Cyperus, GaHngale, Heleocharis or the 

 Spike Rushes, the Bulrushes, Cotton-grasses, Beak 

 Sedges, Bog-rush, Prickly Twig Rush, Kobresia, and 

 the Sedges. 



Bentham and Hooker make four tribes, Scirpeae, 

 including the first four, Rhynchosporeae, including the 

 next three, Scleriese, emhrsLcing Kobresiay and Cariceae, 

 including the Sedges. Pax reduces these to two 

 groups — Scirpoideae and Caricoideae. The anatomy 

 has been worked out by Clarke and others. 



In this volume types of the last three tribes are 

 described, the first having been described in the 

 Introductory Volume (p. 217). 



There are some 2500 species and sixty-five genera 

 of plants of the Sedge group. In distribution they 

 are cosmopolitan. Most of them are moisture-loving 

 plants found in marshes, fens, moors, or in the reed- 

 swamp in the aquatic formation. Many species form 

 wide associations as.the Cotton-grass, Bulrush, Sedges. 



The group is related to the Restiaceae in possess- 

 ing no regular perianth, and to the Graminaceae, from 

 which it differs in the absence of an inner scale or 

 palea between the flower and the axis of the spikelets, 

 and in the simple, not feathery, stigmas. The sheaths 

 are entire in the Sedges, split in the Grasses. The 



