“TYPHACE. 5 
the apex (sterile stamens?). Female flowers without a perianth (?): 
ovaries sessile or shortly stalked, free or united in pairs, surrounded by 
3 to 6 imbricated membranous scales (abortive stamens?); style short; 
stigma elongate, unilateral. Fruit rather large, subsessile or shortly 
stalked, dry, subdrupaceous, with a woody endocarp and a spongy 
epicarp. 
Aquatic plants with broadly linear distichous leaves and small 
globular heads of flowers, the latter rising above the water, which the 
leaves sometimes do, while in other cases they remain floating on the 
surface. 
The name of this genus of plants is derived from the Greek word ordpyaroy, a 
band, in allusion to the ribbon-shaped leaves. (Diose. iv. 23.) 
SPECIES I-SPARGANIUM RAMOSUM. JZuds. 
Prate MCCCLXXXVIL. 
Reich. Ic. Fl. Germ. et Helv. Vol. X. Tab. CCCXXVI. Fig. 751. 
S. erectum, var. a, Linn. Spec. Pl. p.1378. eich. l.e. p. 2. 
Radical leaves broadly linear, stiff, not floating, sharply keeled and 
triquetrous at the base, with the lateral faces channeled; stem leaves 
with their sheaths not inflated. Flowering stem erect, stiff, branched 
at the apex. Flower-heads in a panicle. Female flower-heads sessile 
on the lateral branches of the panicle, 1 to 8 on each branch. Male 
flower-heads very numerous, sessile towards the extremities of the 
lateral branches and termination of the rachis of the panicle. Stigma 
lanceolate-linear. Fruit sessile, prismatic-turbinate, with a conico- 
pyramidal or ovate-pyramidal top abruptly acuminated into a short 
beak. Leaves green, not pellucid. 
In ditches and in shallow water by the sides of ponds and rivers. 
Common and generally distributed, but rare in the north of Scotland, 
though extending to Orkney. 
England, Scotland, Ireland. Perennial. Summer. 
Rootstock stoloniferous. Leaves numerous, 1} to 5 feet long, } inch 
to 1 inch broad, the radical ones slightly channeled towards the base 
on the upper side, and with concave lateral faces; stem leaves flat 
from a sheathing base; lower bracts resembling the leaves, but shorter 
and amplexicaul, not sheathing; upper bracts much shorter than the 
lower ones. Stem stout, rather shorter than the leaves, the upper part 
jwith several alternate branches which have bracts at the base. Flower- 
jheads globose; the female ones sessile along the branches, 1 or 2 placed 
about the middle of each branch or the lowest one terminating the 
branch. Male heads all sessile, olive-black before the anthers expand, 
smaller than the female, very numerous, on the continuation of the 
