GLUMACEiE 389 



glumes are brown in plants of the Sedge group, green 

 or purplish in the Grasses. 



The habit is typical or Sedge-like, or like that of 

 the Grasses. The rhizomes are creeping, sympodial. 

 The new shoot of each year is attached throughout 

 the length of an internode to the stock or first main 

 shoot. The stem is usually solid, angular, with three 

 rows of leaves. The plants are generally perennial. 

 The leaves are grass-like with closed sheaths at the 

 base. 



The inflorescence is a spike or panicle, with flowers 

 in spikelets which may form a cyme or sympodium, 

 being a pseudo-spikelet. They are uni- or bi-sexual. 

 They are borne in the axils of a glume, usually 

 naked, sometimes with a perianth, or six or more 

 small, hypogynous scales or hairs as in Cotton- 

 grasses. The anthers and styles project beyond 

 the rounded, annular or flattened spikelets, and 

 are solitary or terminal, or several in a terminal 

 cluster (simple or compound), spike, or umbel. The 

 spikelet, enclosed in an outer glume, consists of 

 several overlapping glumes, with a single flower in the 

 axil of each. The glumes are concave, sometimes 

 rigid, in two rows, or surrounding the rachis. The 

 lower glume in each spikelet is as a rule empty. In 

 Sedges there is an outer second glume in the female 

 flowers, the utricle or perigynium, of one folded or two 

 connate bracteoles. There are three stamens or two, 

 hypogynous, with linear, flat anther-stalks. There 

 may be a row of bristles or abortive filaments. The 



