Scrrpvs. | ' CYPERACEA. 363 
bract 1-3 inches long, erect, appearing as a continuation of the stem. 
Glumes 4 in. long, ovate, concave, scarious, tip notched, margins 
pilose, keel excurrent as a small scabrid mucro. Brisiles 5-6, retror- 
sely scabrid. Style 2-3 fid. Nut ~;- yin. long, obovoid, plano- 
convex, long apiculate, smooth, pale ultimately dark brown. 
Pilibhit (Inayat). Distrisp.: Kumaon! Kashmir! Afghanistan ! 
Baluchistan! Scattered throughout the world except 8. America, 
abundant in Europe. 
11. §. maritimus, Linn. Sp. Pl. (1758), 61; F. B. I. vi, 658; 
Prain, Beng. Pl. 1161 ; Cooke, Fl. Bomb. ti, 893.. 
Rhizome creeping, nodes dilating into woody tubers. Stems 1-3 ft. 
high, stout, trigonous, sheaths long often clothing the stem to half 
its height, mouth truncate with a small V-shaped scarious portion, 
usually split in older leaves, blade grass-like often as long as the 
stem, coriaceous, scabrid on the margins towards the apex. Spike- 
lets $-1 in. long, 3-8 or solitary on each ray or umbel rarely reduced 
‘to a head of 1-3 spikelets, rays of unequal length, subcorymbose, 
bracts several leaflike, the lowest usually much exceeding the umbel. 
Glumes } in. long, broadly ovate, bifid at the apex, membranous, 
brown or golden-brown, minutely pubescent, the apical lobes more 
or less fimbriate, keel excurrent as a more or less curved awn. 
Bristles 3-6, unequal, retrorsely scabrid. Sfyle.3-fid. Nut } in. 
long, obovoid, one face larger than the other two hence plano-convex 
rather than trigonous, smooth, bluntly pointed at both ends, pale 
straw-colored (not seen quite ripe). 
Saharanpur (Jameson), Merwara (Duthie, Lowrie), Jhansi (Duthie), 
Gwalior (Maries), Mainpuri (Duthie), Aligarh (Jameson), Moradabad 
(Thomson), Kheri (Inayat). 
var. AFFINIS, C. B. Clarke. Spikelets capitate, usually 1-3, ovoid- 
lanceolate, glumes straw-coloured, almost glabrous. Style 2-fid. 
Nut rather smaller but over yz in. long compressed biconvex, minutely 
lacunose (microscopically a honey-combed surface pattern) brown 
or pale"straw-color. 
Saharanpur (Royle), Delhi (Royle), Agra (Jameson), Gwalior (Maries), 
Pilibhit (Inayat), Kheri (Inayat), Bahraich (Inayat), Gorakhpur 
(Harsukh). According to Clarke the bristles are 4, as long as the 
nut in var. affinis. Neither the number of bristles nor their size 
is constant. I have found them scarcely half the length of the ripe 
nut and up to 6 in number. Distris.: World wide in various 
forms, 
