Scleria.] CYPERACEiE. 399 



15. SCLERIA, Linn. 



Mowers unisexual, in unisexual or androgynous spikelets, with several empty 

 glumes below the flowering ones. Male spikelets several-flowered. Stamens 

 3 or rarely fewer. Females 1 -flowered. Style 3 -cleft. Androgynous spike- 

 lets with the lowest flower female, the others male. Nut bony or brittle, 

 seated on a thickened entire or 3-lobed disk. — Grass-like herbs with leafy 

 stems. Ligula or projection of the leaf- sheath opposite the blade often very 

 conspicuous. Spikelets in clusters or small corymbose or oblong panicles, 

 terminal and in the upper axils, forming either an oblong leafy panicle or an 

 interrupted spike. 



A considerable genus, widely spread over the tropical and subtropical regions of the New 

 and the Old World, extending also into the temperate regions of N. America. The species 

 can scarcely be determined unless the nuts are fully formed. 



Peduncles scarcely branched, bearing few rather distant small clusters. 



Nut smooth and shining. Disk entire 1. S. lithosperma. 



Nut reticulate and pitted. Disk with 3 lanceolate lobes . . . . 2. S. tessellata. 

 Peduncles bearing more or less branched panicles. 



Nuts smooth and shining. Panicle spreading 5. S. Icevis. 



Nuts tuberculate or irregularly reticulate. 



Leaves pubescent or hairy. Panicle little branched, not spreading. 



Disk-lobes lanceolate, entire 3. S. pubescens. 



Leaves glabrous, distant. Panicle rather spreading. Disk-lobes 



very short and broad 4. 5. chinensis. 



Leaves long and numerous, the sheaths often pubescent. Panicles 



long and spreading (disk-lobes obtuse ?) 6. S. purpurascens. 



1. S. lithosperma, Willd. ; Kunth, Enum. ii. 349. Stems slender, 3- 

 angled, 1 to 1^ ft. high. Leaves narrow-linear, seldom 1 line broad, in the 

 Hongkong specimens the upper ones passing into subulate bracts. Peduncles 

 axillary and terminal, bearing each 1 to 4 distant clusters of 2 or 3 spikelets 

 each, 1 or rarely 2 female, the other male. Inner glumes very pointed, about 

 2 lines long. Nut ovoid, white, very smooth and shining, seated on a short 

 broad entire disk. 



Hongkong, Harland. Spread over India, from Ceylon and the Peninsula to the Archi- 

 pelago, and northward to the Philippines and S. China. This is certainly the plant described 

 by Kunth, who had seen Willdenow's specimen. Nees however describes a 3-lobed disk, 

 which I have never found. 



A specimen from Wright, in young flower, has much the aspect of the above species, but 

 the spikelets are all androgynous, about 3 lines long, with 1 female flower and 5 or 6 males 

 above it. The disk is entire, but the nut is too young to characterize the species or even to 

 determine with certainty that it belongs to the genus. 



2. S. tessellata, Willd. ; Kunth, Enum. ii. 343. Stems slender. Leaves 

 narrow-linear, glabrous or nearly so, smooth or rough on the edges. Pedun- 

 cles short, axillary and terminal, bearing 1 to 4 not very distant clusters of 

 2 or 3 spikelets as in the last species. Glumes of the female pale-coloured, 

 rather broad, the longest scarcely 2 lines, and 1 or 2 inner ones much smaller. 

 Nut globular, obtuse, white, tipped with the small black persistent base of 

 the style, elegantly and regularly pitted, slightly pubescent on the raised 

 netted lines. Disk with 3 lanceolate lobes. — S. Steudeliatia, Miq. Fl. Ned. 

 Ind. iii. 344. 



