GLUMACE.^ 393 



stature, with erect stems, which are rigid, round in 

 section, and leafless above. The leaves are radical, 

 not so long as the stem, wiry, bent back, grooved, 

 the margins convolute as in plants adapted, as in the 

 Black Beak-rush also, to physiological drought. The 

 leaves may sheath the base of the stem, and are 

 spreading. 



The flowers are in a narrow spike. There are four 

 to five brown, short spikelets, which are more or less 

 in two rows, stalkless, cylindrical. The lower flowers 

 are abortive and the second are female, with an ovary 

 and three-cleft style in each glume. The male flowers 

 are the upper terminal spikelets, and one terminal 

 flower in the lateral spikelets, made up of stamens 

 within each glume. The lower may be compound 

 or branched. The bracts are small, the lowest having 

 a rigid toothed point. The glumes are rigid, ovate 

 to oblong, blunt, pale brown. The nut is as long as 

 the glumes, linear, beaked, pale. 



In height Kobresia varies from 4 to 9 in., but is 

 generally 6 in. It flowers late, in August and 

 September, and is a herbaceous perennial. 



The flowers are pollinated by the wind, the stigmas 

 ripening in advance of the anthers. 



The nuts fall when ripe near the parent plant. 



Kobresia caricina. — Fig. no sJiows the sedge-like 

 habit, the tufted character, the wiry bent-back leaves, some 

 sheathing the base of the stem ; also the narrow spike 

 with four to five spikelets ^ in two rows. 



