Eriocaulon.] restiaceje. 383 



female flowers, but in that species the outer male perianth has 2 narrow segments ; the fe- 

 male segments are firmer and less pointed than in ours, and the mature heads are broadly 

 obconical, not ovoid. 



6. E. setaceum, Linn.; Kcern. in Zinn&a, xxvii. 603. Stems, when 

 submerged, more or less elongated and leafy. Leaves filiform, ^ to 1^ in. 

 long, slightly enlarged at the base. Scapes very slender, 2 to 4 in. long. 

 Flower-head ovoid-globose, about 1£ lines diameter. Outer bracts broad, 

 rather shorter than the disk ; inner ones obovate-oblong, acute, thin and 

 transparent, with a few white hairs at the tip. Outer male perianth spa- 

 thaceous, 3-toothed, inner lobes minute. Female outer segments 3, obo- 

 vate, 3 inner ones spathulate, all narrowed at the base, thin and transparent, 

 slightly fringed at the top. Style deeply 3-cleft. 



Hongkong, Wright. In Ceylon and Tavoy. 



Order CXXII. CYPERACE.E, 



Flowers in little green or brown spikes called spikelets, consisting of several 

 scale-like bracts called glumes, either distichous as in Graminece, or imbricated 

 all round with one sessile flower in the axil of each, or the lower ones empty. 

 Perianth either none or replaced by a few bristles or minute scales. Stamens 

 3, rarely 2 or 1 or more than 3. Ovary (in the same or in a distinct glume) 

 simple, 1 -celled, with 1 erect ovule. Style more or less deeply divided into 

 2 or 3 branches or linear stigmas. Fruit a small seed-like nut, flattened 

 when the style is 2-cleft, triangular when it is 3-cleft. Seed albuminous, 

 with a small lens-shaped embryo in its base. — Herbs, resembling in aspect 

 the Junceo?, or more frequently the Graminece ; but usually stiffer than the 

 latter, with solid stems and the sheaths of the leaves closed all round. Spike- 

 lets terminal (or apparently lateral when a leafy bract appears to continue the 

 stem), solitary or several in a simple or compound cluster, spike, umbel, or 

 panicle. Inflorescence and its branches almost always subtended by bracts, 

 which are usually leaf-like under the general inflorescence, glume-like under 

 the spikelets. When the inflorescence is umbellate it is very irregularly so, 

 one spikelet, cluster, or partial umbel being always sessile, whilst the others 

 are supported on peduncles or rays of very unequal length. 



A large Order, abundantly distributed all over the globe, but more especially in moist 

 situations or on the edges of waters. 

 Flowers, at least the fertile ones, hermaphrodite. 



Spikelets several-flowered, with only 1 or 2 empty glumes below 

 the flowering ones. 

 Glumes distichous, at least in the young spikelet. 



Style not thickened at the base. Spikelets in clusters or 

 spikes, on the scape or on the rays of a simple or com- 

 pound umbel 1. Ciperus. 



Style thickened at the base and articulate on the nut. Spike- 

 lets single on the scape or the umbel-rays 5. Abildgaardia. 



Glumes imbricate all round. 



No hypogynous bristles or scales. 



Style thickened at the base and articulate on the nut . . 6. Fimbristyles. 

 Style falling off above the thickened base, which remains 



as a beak or tubercle on the nut 7- Isolepis. - 



