Class II 

 MONOCOTYLEDONOUS PLANTS (p. 269) 



Sub-Class II 



GLt'MACEiE 



Flowers without petals, usually arising in the axils of chaffy 

 scales (glumes), which are often imbricate, sometimes (in EriocauUa) 

 with a perianth of 4-6 segments. 



Natural Order XCV 



ERIOCAULEjE. Pipe- Wort Tribe 



Flowers unisexual ; perianth of 4 or 6 segments, the 2 or 3 inner 

 ones in the male flowers united to near the summit ; stamens 2-6 ; 

 capsule 2- or 3-lobed and 2- or 3-cellcd ; style single, with 2 or 3 

 stigmas; seeds solitary in each cell and suspended from the top. 

 Usually herbs with a rush-like habit, often growing in swampy 

 places. The Order includes about 360 species which are dispei 

 through the warmer parts of the world, but arc most numerous in 

 Tropical America ; none is of economic importance. 



1. Eriocaulon (Pipe-wort). Leaves tufted ; peduncles leafless, 

 bearing a globose head of minute flowers, the central of which are 

 chiefly males, the outer chiefly females, all intermixed with small 

 bracts, and the whole surrounded by rather larger ones forming 

 an involucre ; perianth very delicate, of 4 segments ; stamens 4 ; 

 stigmas and lobes of the ovary 2. Aquatic or marsh herbs. (Name 

 from the Greek erion, wool, and kaulon, a stem, from the fact that 

 some species have woolly peduncles.) 



1. Eriocaulon (Pipe-wort) 



1. E. seplangulare (Common Pipe-wort). The only species 

 found in the British Isles. It is a small herb with a slender, creep- 

 ing rootstock ; leaves linear, very pointed, pellucid, 1-3 inches 

 long ; peduncles 2-12 inches high ; brads and perianth lead- 

 coloured. Lakes in the Hebrides and west coast of Ireland Fl. 

 August. Perennial. 



