26. Round-stalked Sedge 

 (when luxuriant). 



444 THE SEDGE FAMILY. 



Spikelets decidedly brown. 

 a. Rootstock creeping. Stems stout, rounded, 

 and leafy; the margins and keel of the 

 leaves prickly with minute teeth. Spike- 

 lets in small but very numerous clusters, 

 produced from the upper axils, the whole 

 forming a terminal, more or less leafy 

 panicle, twelve or fourteen inches long. 

 Flowers bisexual. Stamens usually two . . 1. Cladiu&t. 

 6. Eootstock tufted. Stem with three acute, rough 

 angles. ' Spikelets arranged on elongated 

 and diverging branches at the upper ex- 

 tremity, and fomiing a narrow spicate 

 panicle, three to six inches long. Flowers 



imisesual. Stamens three 25. Gt. Panicled Sedge 



c. Similar to the preceding, but smaller and slen- 

 derer in all its parts, growing in separate 



tufts, and the stem rather rounded 



Stems six to fifteen inches high. Leaves chiefly radical. 

 Stems very slender, without any creeping rootstock. 

 Leaves few, short, and very fine. Spikelets 

 nearly white, in little loose terminal clusters, 

 scarcely half an inch long, often with one or 

 two smaller clusters on slender pedimcles in 



the axils of the leaves below 2. White Beae-bush. 



Stems with a creeping rootstock. Leaves hard,"" 

 broad, and often channelled. Spikelets egg- 

 shaped, half an inch long, olive-green, in a 

 terminal umbel of two or three to ten or 

 twelve, the inner ones sessile, the outer ones 

 on peduncles which are often two or three 

 inches long, and droop elegantly. When in 

 fruit, tliese become large and very beautiful 

 silky tassels of a shining white, caused by 



the growth of hypogynous bristles 



B. 

 Heads of flowers clustered, two or three to five or six, or many more, together, 

 forming spikes of one to six inches in length, and more or less interrupted; 

 the heads almost invsu-iably sessile. 



• 

 Flowers in distinct male and female heads or catkins, a male one at the summit 

 of the stem, and terminating it, and two or more sessile female catkins 

 immediately undomeatli. 

 Catkins elliptical ; females usually two, close, on short 

 stalks, which are covered by the sheaths. Fruit 

 obovate, acute. Stemsthree to nine inches high. 42. Spring Carex. 

 Catkins nearly globular ; females about three. Fruit 



almnsi gloliulai'. Stfnis twelve iiiobcs liigli . . 43. rit,!. Tauex. 



13. Many-headed Cotton- 

 grass. 



