PIPE-WORT FAMILY 52 I 



7. NAfAS. — Slender, submerged, aquatic herbs with linear, 

 whorled leaves, with adherent stipules ; axillary, dioecious flowers ; 

 stamen i, sessile, i — 4-chambered, enclosed in 2 sheaths or 

 perianth-whorls; carpel 1, sessile; stigmas 2 — 4, awl-shaped. 

 (Name from the Greek naias, a water-nymph.) 



1. A'', flexilis (Flexible Naias). — A little, submerged plant, with 

 thread-like, branched, brittle stems ; linear, entire leaves in whorls 

 of 3, about an inch long, bright green, pellucid, with ciliate 

 sheaths ; flowers 1 — 3 together. — Deep lakes, Perthshire, Skye, 

 and Connemara. — Fl. August, September. Annual. 



2. N. marina (Larger Naias). — Stem less branched ; leaves in 

 whorls of 2 or 3, strongly spinosely serrate, with entire sheaths ; 

 flowers solitary. — Hickling Broad, Norfolk. — Fl. July. 



3.* N. gramin.a. — Leaves olive-green, in tufts with serrate 

 sheaths. — In a canal at x\shton-under-Lyne ; not indigenous. 



Ord. LXXXIX. ERiocAULEyE. — The Pipe-wort Family 



A group of herbaceous plants chiefly inhabiting tropical 

 swamps, with their leaves mostly radical, linear and sheathing, and 

 often hollow ; minute, imperfect flowers in a bracteate head ; 

 perianth inferior, of 2 whorls of 2 — 3 leaves each ; stamens double 

 the number of the inner perianth-lobes, but half of them often 

 rudimentary ; carpels 2 — 3, united ; style single, terminal, short, 

 persistent ; stigmas 2 — 3 slender ; ovules solitary in each carpel ; 

 fruit capsular. 



I. Eriocaulon (Pipe-wort). — Staminate flowers chiefly in the 

 centre of the head, generally 2-merous ; outer perianth-leaves 

 spathulate ; inner united in a tube. (Name from the Greek 

 erio7t, wool, kaulos, a stem, some species having a woolly 

 peduncle.) ' 



I. E. septanguldre (Common Pipe- wort). — A little submerged 

 plant with a creeping rhizome ; short, leafy stem ; leaves subulate, 

 2 — 4 in. long, green, pellucid, compressed ; flowers on a 6 — 8-angled 

 peduncle from 6 in. to 2 feet high, in a small head with, lead- 

 coloured bracts ; outer perianth-leaves black, fringed ; inner with a 

 black spot ; stamens usually 4, with dark anthers. — Lakes in Skye 

 and Connemara ; but mainly North American. — Fl. August. 

 Perennial. 



Sub-Class IL GLUMfFERyE 



Flowers in spikelets (small spikes) each in the axil of one of the 

 imbricate, rigid, chaff-hke bracts or glumes; perianth absent or 



