C Y P 



OR, BOTANICAL DICTIONARY. 



C Y P 



423 



high, having four alternate leaves at bottom. The round 

 tuberous knobs attached to the roots, have a similar fragrance 

 to the ninth species, and are used in Greece to keep insects 

 from clothes. Native of Arabia, India, Ceylon, and Japan. 



1<2. Cyperus Squurrosus. Culm naked ; umbel leafy, glo- 

 merate ; spikes striated, squarrose. Culms several, one or 

 two inches high, filiform, three-sided ; leaves linear, bristle- 

 shaped, longer than the culm, embracing the base of it with 

 purple sheaths, glaucous when young, when old ferruginous. 

 Native ofTranquebar, and the Cape of Good Hope. 



13. Cyperus Ditformis. Culm naked ; umbel two-leaved, 

 simple, trin'il ; spikes cuspidate, the middle one sessile. Culm 

 three-sided, flaccid, very weak, a foot high, having two linear 

 soft leaves, two inches long, of a brownish green colour, 

 above the base, in other parts naked. Native of India. 



14. Cyperus Iria. Culm half naked; umbel leafy; pedun- 

 cles unequal, subumbellate ; floscules distinct. Peduncles 

 in the umbel very many, umbelliferous at top ; umbel of three 

 or four rays, alternately bearing spikelets, of three-cornered 

 and very obtuse grains, covered with a scarcely discernible 

 chaff, and little distant from each other : itisan elegant plant. 

 Native of India, China, and Japan. 



15. Cyperus Elatus. Culms naked ; umbel leafy, super- 

 decompound ; spikes a finger's length, imbricate ; spikelets 

 subulate. This is a large plant, with an even culm ; umbel 

 unequal. Native of the East Indies. 



16. Cyperus Glomeratus. Culm naked ; umbels decom- 

 pound, simple, leafy ; pedicels spiked in a double row. Sup- 

 posed to be a variety of the preceding. Native of Italy. 



17. Cyperus Glaber. Culm naked, even ; umbel three- 

 leaved ; flowers glomerate, the lower brachiate ; leaves 

 smooth. Culm a palm in height : root-leaves erect, wholly 

 smooth, the length of the culm ; flowers ovate, compressed, 

 imbricate, in two rows, growing brown by age. Annual : 

 found in wet places about Verona and Piedmont. 



18. Cyperus Elegans. Culm naked ; umbel leafy : pedun- 

 cles naked, proliferous ; spikes crowded, with spreading 

 points. Root-leaves from two to three feet and a half in 

 length ; stalk two feet and a half high, with two or three 

 leaves on the top, one whereof is a foot long. Native of the 

 sea marshes in Jamaica, also of the island of Santa Cruz. 



19. Cyperus Odoratus. Culm naked ; umbel decom- 

 pound, simply leafy ; pedicels spiked in a double row. Root 

 long, roundish, frequently jointed, reddish on the outside, 

 ve.-y odoriferous, creeping, and making a large tuft, whence 

 rise many leaves with a prominent sharp cutting keel. It is 

 found by river-sides in Jamaica and most of the Caribbee 

 islands ; as well as in Surinam, and the Society Isles. 



'20. Cyperus Compressus. Culm naked ; universal umbel 

 three-leaved ; glumes mucronate with the sides, membrana- 

 ceous. This species is distinguished by its green panicle 

 and spikes, by its mucronate glumes, not spreading, but the 

 side-edges membranaceous. Native of Jamaica, Virginia, 

 and Malabar : it is generally found in sandy pastures. 



21. Cyperus Flavescens ; Yellow Cyperus. Culm naked; 

 umbel three-leaved ; peduncles simple, unequal ; spikes 

 crowded, lanceolate. Fibres of the root loaded with little 

 tubers; culms obtusely three-cornered, smooth, from an inch 

 to a hand and a span in height ; root-leaves spreading, 

 smooth, keeled, two or three inches long, mucronate; besides 

 these there are two or three under the umbel of unequal 

 lengths, narrower than the others, and longer than the umbel. 

 It is biennial, flowering from July to September. Native of 

 France, Germany, Switzerland, Carniola, and Piedmont. 



22. Cyperus Fuscus ; Brown Cyperus. Culm naked ; 

 umbel trifid ; peduncles branched, unequal ; spikes crowded, 



linear. It scarcely differs apparently from the foregoing, in 

 having narrower brown spikelets, and the leaves more sca- 

 brous. Root annual ; culms a span in height, smooth, with 

 two or three leaves at the base, which are keeled, smooth, 

 and the length of the culm. It flowers from July to Sep- 

 tember. Native of Denmark, France, Germany, Switzer- 

 land, Carniola, Piedmont, and Egypt. 



23. Cyperus Pumilus. Culm naked ; umbel two-leaved, 

 compound ; spikelets alternate, digitate, lanceolate ; glumes 

 mucronate. Culm about three inches high, with a few leaves 

 at bottom ; involucres three-leaved, unequal. Native of the 

 East Indies. 



24. Cyperus Triflorus. Culm naked; umbel three-spiked, 

 the middle one sessile ; spikelets even. Culms even, a foot 

 high. Perennial ; and a native of the East Indies. 



25. Cyperus Strigosus. Culm naked; umbelsimple ; spike- 

 lets linear, very much crowded, horizontal. Root roundish ; 

 culm striated, smooth, sheathed wih leaves at the bottom, a 

 foot high; leaves channelled, entire, smooth, shorter than the 

 culm. Native of marshes in Japan, Virginia, and Barbadoes. 



26. Cyperus Ligularis. Spikelets of the umbel capitate, 

 oblong, sessile; involucres very long, serrate, and rough. 

 Leaves many, three feet long, nearly an inch broad atbottom, 

 ending in a point, and making a large tuft ; stalks as thick as 

 the finger, three feet high ; seeds brownish-red, and shining. 

 Native of Barbadoes, near Bridge Town ; and also of 

 Guinea, in Africa. 



27. Cyperus Papyrus; Paper Cyperus, or Egyptian Pa- 

 pyrus. Culm naked; umbel longer than the involucres; 

 involucels three-leaved, setaceous, longer; spikelets in threes. 

 The stem is many feet in height, terminated by a very large 

 and compound umbel of innumerable flowers ; root large and 

 creeping; leaves sword-shaped, sheathing the lower part of 

 the stern. Native of Egypt, Syria, Calabria, Sicily ; and 

 found, according to Strabo, in the lake Thrasimene, near 

 Perugia. Papyrus was called biblus by the Grecians ; in 

 Egypt it had the name of el berdi; and is said to be known 

 in Syria by the name of babeer, which very nearly approaches 

 to the sound of papyrus and paper. The general figure of 

 this plant, as Pliny has correctly stated, resembles a thyrsus ; 

 the head is composed of many small grassy filamenta, each 

 about a foot long ; about the middle, each of these filamenta 

 parts into four, and in the point or partition are four branches 

 of flowers ; the head of this is not unlike an ear of wheat in 

 form, but in fact is only a chaffy, silky, soft husk ; these 

 heads, or flowers, grow upon the same stalk alternately, and 

 are not opposite to, or on the same line with, each other at 

 the bottom. Pliny says it has no seed : the seed is indeed 

 very small, and by its elevated situation, and the thickness of 

 the head of the flower, requires the extraordinary covering 

 which protects it from the violent hold the wind must have 

 upon it. For the same reason the bottom of the filamenta, 

 composing the head, are sheathed in four concave leaves, 

 which keep them close together, and prevent injury from the 

 wind getting in between them. The stalk is of a vivid green, 

 and of a triangular form ; it has but one root, which is large 

 and strong ; Pliny says, as thick as a man's arm ; which it 

 probably was when the plant was fifteen feet high, but the 

 whole length of the stalk, including the head, being little 

 more than ten feet in the plants we now find, they are pro- 

 portionably smaller : in the middle of this long root arises the 

 stalk at right angles, the whole inverted having the figure of a 

 T. From each side of the large root proceed smaller elastic 

 roots or fibres in a direction perpendicular to it,and which, like 

 the strings of a tent, steady it, and fix it to the earth at bottom : 

 about two feet or little more of the lower part of the stalk is 



