5. Mariscus ] 138. CYPERACE.^. 



5. MARISCUS, Vahl. 

 Usually perennial herbs with grass-like leaves and bracts. Spike 

 lets laterally compressed or quite terete with the glumes 2-seriate 

 (distichous) or slightly spiral, lowest 2 always empty, smaller than 

 the others, usually persistent or separately deciduous after the rest 

 of the spkt. has fallen, next 1-2 glumes also sometimes empty, occa- 

 sionally only 1-3 glumes flowering and 2-sexual but more often 

 more and up to 12. Rhachilla disarticulate above the two lowest 

 glumes leaving a small knob or disc with sometimes an annular ridge 

 on the top. Stamens 3 (in all plants seen by me). Nut usually 

 oblong and somewhat wider upwards more rarely ovoid or obovoid, 

 sometimes slightly curved and asymmetric. Stigmas 3 slender. 



Mariscus is united with Ci/penis by some botanists. It seems to me usually 

 amjily distinct and (as in the case of Ji". dilutus) to make a transition to the 

 Rhjaichosporeae. The only species likely to give rise to confusion in our area are 

 Cyperus arisfatns and M. squarrosus, but in this case it seems that the Cyperas is 

 nearer Mariscus. 

 I. Umbels contracted into a single ovoid dense head : — 



Spkts. bearing- 2-6 nuts 1. Dregeanus. 



II. Umbels not contracted into dense heads : — 



A. Spikelets short in linear cylindric or oblong spikes : — 



1. Umbels simple : — 



a. Spikes cylindric narrow sessile or peduncled. Spkts. 



bearing 1-2 (verj' rarely 3) nuts : — 

 Stolons slender. Fruiting spkts. suberect slender 



acuminate "2" 2. fenuifoJius. 



Stolons 0. Fruiting spkts. divaricate subfusiform 



'15" 3. Sieherianus. 



b. Spikes short suljquadrate. Spkts. bearing 4 or more 



nuts : — 

 Spkts. divaricate. Glumes aristate . . . .4. squarrosus. 



2. Umbels compound. Robust herbs with broad leaves :— 

 Spikes cylindric or ovoid. Spkts. with 3-6 nuts. Glumes 



obtuse ........... 5. albescens. 



B. Spikelets linear in globose spikes or heads. Heads in com- 



pound or decompound umbels 6. compactus. 



1. M. Dregeanus, Kunth. 



A csespitose sedge 1-2 ft. high without stolons and the spikelets 

 congested into a single terminal head -3- -6" long and broad, each 

 spikelet ovoid to linear •2--3" long bearing 2-6 nuts. Glumes above 

 the two persistent loAvest •12-- 15" many-striate. Nuts linear black 

 3-quetrous -08" (oblong or somewhat obovoid, Clarke). 



Messrs. JVarayansicami and Carter refer to a 3Iariscus sp. nov. allied to M. 

 Dregeanus hnt to which they give no name. They state that it differs in having 

 nuts in all the spikelets, which are usually compressed and longer than those of 

 Dregeanus. The fl. glumes are boat-shaped and not ovate. 



Island of Barkuda in the Chilka Lake, rare {Memoirs As. Soc. Seng.). I have 

 3iot seen it. 



Base of stem in M. Dregeanus oblong thickened hy the turgid membranous 

 coloured sheaths. 



2. M. tenuifolius, Schrad. 



A very slender plant with very slender stolons, base covered with 

 fibrous sheaths. Leaves slender or filiform (in the Monghyr specimen) 

 and bracts similar. Spikes cylindric -3-1" long solitary on the rays 

 which are 0-1" long in a simple contracted umbel supported by bracts 



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