Rushes and Reeds 341 
seeds are many instead of three. The three outer 
segments of the perianth are keeled, and all are more 
slender. The leaves and stems are smooth, and the - 
leaves in some cases reduced to mere sheaths round 
the stem. The pith from the stems of these plants 
constituted the wicks of the old “rushlights.” 
In Bulrush (Scirpus lacustris) the segments of the 
perianth have been reduced to six bristles, and in the 
related group, the Sedges (Carex) the perianth has 
disappeared completely, the female flowers being 
enclosed instead in a bottle-shaped sack called the 
perigynium, Which is composed of two united chaffy 
scales known as glumes. These glumes are of similar 
nature to the bracts and spathes we have met in 
some preceding families, and we shall meet them 
again, or similar bodies, in the Grasses. 
The mention of spathes reminds me of a notable 
example of such, which does not properly 
come within the subject-matter of this chapter 
—nor, for the matter of that, of any other 
chapter, so it may as well be mentioned here 
as elsewhere. I allude to the well-known 
Cuckoo-pint, Wake Robin, or Lords and Ladies 
(Arum maculatum). Everybody is well ac- 
quainted with the remarkable cowl - like 
“flower” of this plant, which is really a large 
assemblage of flowers within a spathe, all of 
which have so completely got rid of their 
perianths that they have had to cover their 
nakedness in this huge tent of a spathe. Few 
of the many that make efforts in early spring 
to grub up this strange plant from hedge-bank 
and copse, pause to consider the interesting series of 
Cuckoo-pint 
