248 North American Cyperacece. . 



Cyp. culmo tereti, &c. Gron. Virg. ed. 2. p. 9. 



Gram, junceum, elatiu«, &c. Pluli-. aim. 279. t. 301./. 1. 



Culm about 18 inches high, terete 'below, obscurely triangular above , 

 smooth. Leaves linear, flat, 2 — 3 inches long, 2—3 lines wide, acute, 

 spreading almost horizontally in three directions ; sheaths rather loose, 

 truncate, brownish and naked at the throat. Spikes or racemes on short 

 exserted peduncles, growing from the sheaths of the leaves, each bearing 

 from 8 to 14 lanceolate-linear, distichously spreading spikelets, about 

 three-fourths of an inch long. Partial rachis flexuous, 6 — 10-flowered, 

 articulated, easily separating at the joints, which are excavated by the 

 pressure of the nuts. Scales lanceolate, very acute, appressed, yellow- 

 ferruginous with a green keel. Bristles seldom less than 7, and often 9, 

 (16 Valil!) strong and rigid, persistent, projecting a little beyond the 

 scale when mature, longer than the nut without the style. Stamens 3 ; 

 filaments very slender, longer than the bristles, and inserted within them 

 at their base. Style attenuated into a long point, bifid at the extremity, 

 smooth. Nut about a line and a half long, smooth and dull, light brown , 

 contracted into a short pedicel at the base, flat at the back, and a little 

 convex in front, the summit tapering into a long, straight point, formed of 

 the inarticulate, persistent, undivided style. 



Hab. Borders of ponds, and in swamps, from Canada ! to 

 Georgia and Pennsylvania ! and west to the Mississippi. — Au- 

 gust to September. 



I have seen in the herbarium of ray friend John Carey, 

 Esq. a specimen of this plant, in which most of the nuts were 

 in the stale of Ergot ; a disease which very rarely occurs in 

 this natural order. 



Obs. The genus Dulichium is very distinct in habit from 

 any other Cyperaceous plant growing within the limits of our 

 Flora, and there is considerable difSculty in determining the 

 true section to which it belongs. In many respects it agrees 

 with the Scirpese, in others with the Rhynchosporeae. It resem- 

 bles the Cypereas in the distichous arrangement of the scales ; 

 and the spikelets long on the common rachis ; but it differs 

 from most of them in its rostrate fruit and rigid perigynous 

 bristles. 



The D. Canadense of Persoon is probably identical with this 

 species, the number of florets in the spikelet being variable. 



