484 CYPERACEAE, [Scleria. 
bricate, clasping with open 5—7-nerved sheaths, their blades about 1” 
broad and 8“ long, stiff subulate, but channelled or flattish, 1—5-nerved, 
with nerves prominent on the back only, acute, finely serrulate. Stems 
or weet hidden among the leaves, slightly exserted at last, simple or 
dichotomous, foliose, stiff, trigonal, with 6 furrows, the scape or each 
branchlet terminating with a single cn hea spikelet which is obovate 
or cuneate and pale rust-colored. Glum or 5, subdistichous, early 
deciduous, stiff, lanceolate, 1-nerved, ee: serrulate, 5 — 21/2" 
long, the outer ones largest. Perigone cartilaginous, dark Sirah: deeply 
tyle 
6-parted, the acute teeth serrulate, less than 1”. Style long-exserted, 
3-cleft beyond the middle. Achene less than 1, obovate, truncate, 
reddish brown, shining, sessile. — The perigone remains on the scape 
after the leaves and glumes have fallen. 
Summit of Eeka, Maui! and high plateau of Kauai (M. & B.), where it forms dense mats 
and globose tussocks on the swampy ground. sen ape from O. obtusa ngulus Gaud., 
(Chili:and Falkland Islds.) not so much by th cape and serru 
as was pointed out by Mann) as by the crate number of glumes. In the lowest glume 
sometimes a vaginal portion can be as ished from the lamina. Thus, with few 
i sree glumes and a regular 6-partite perigone, the present genus represents 1 in 
manner the first stage of the Cy peraceous Onten connecting it with that of the Restiaceae. 
13. SCLERIA, Berg. 
Flowers monoecious, in unisexual or androgynous spikelets, with several 
empty glumes below the flowering ones; the glumes imbricate all round. 
Male iaies several-flowered; stamens 3, rarely fewer. Female spikelets 
1-flowered; style 3-cleft. Anironpos spikelets with the lowest flower 
female, the others male. Nut bony or crustaceous, subglobose, not beaked, 
seated on a thick entire or 3-lobed ie (perigone?). — Grass-like herbs 
with leafy stems. Ligule or projection of the leaf-sheath opposite the 
blade often very cnapion, dry elets a the clusters simple in 
the axils or in axillary and terminal cymes or panicles. 
A large genus (100 species), scattered over the warmer regions of both hemispheres, 
extending also into the temperate zone of N. America, 
1. S. testacea, Nees. — Kunth, Enum. Pl. I, 341. — Stem 1—1'/2 ft. high, 
sharply triquetrous with retrorsely scabrous angles. Leaves of about the 
same length, 4“ broad, flat, acute, chartaceous, strongly 3-nerved, with 
scabrous margins; the sheath 3- winged with an ovate-oblong obtuse ligule. 
age unisexual, elliptico-ovoid, 1!/2—-2", pale fawn-colored, clustered 
n axillary and terminal panicles of 3—4‘ in length; the terminal panicle 
cage the one or two. axillary ones more simple, spike-like, the 
clusters of 2—4 spikelets each and rather distant, 1 or 2 spikelets in 
each being female. Bracts shorter than their clusters or spikelets. Male 
Spikelets 4-flowered, ovoid, 1—1'/2“ long, with 8 distichous glumes 
which 4 are empty, the eat shortest, the middle ones 11/2, ovate, 
