250 COMMON CANADIAN WILD PLANTS. 



2. ELEOCH'ARIS OBTV'SA. 



In this plant, which grows in muddy soil in tufts 8 to 14 inches 

 in height, there is but a single spike at the summit of each 

 sJender culm, and the scales of the spikes, instead of being 

 imbricated in 2 rows and thus producing a flat form, are imbri- 

 cated all round. The scales are very thin in texture, with a 

 midrib somewhat thicker, and are usually brownish in colour. 

 Each of them contains a perfect flower in its axil. Instead of a 

 perianth, there are 6 or 8 hypogynous barbed bristles. The 

 stamens (as is generally the case in this Order) are 3 in number, 

 and the style is usually 3-cleft. Observe that the style is 

 enlarged into a sort of bulb at the base, this bulbous portion 

 persisting as a, flattish tubercle on the apex of the achene. The 

 culms are without leaves, being merely sheathed at the base. 



3. SIRPUS PUNGEtfS. 



A stout marsh-plant, 2 or 3 feet high, with a sharply triangu- 

 lar hollow- sided culm, and bearing at the base from 1 to 3 

 channelled or boat-shaped leaves. The rusty-looking spikes 

 vary in number from 1 to 6, and are in a single sessile cluster 

 which appears to spring from the side of the culm, owing to the 

 1 -leaved involucre resembling the culm and seeming to be a 

 prolongation of it. Each scale of the spike is 2-cleft at the 

 apex, and bears a point in the cleft. The flowers are perfect, 

 witn 2 to 6 bristles instead of perianth, 3 stamens, and a 2-cleft 

 style, but there is no tubercle on the apex of the achene. The 

 culms of this plant spring from stout running rootstocks. 



4. ERIOPH'OROI POLYSTACH'YON. 



A common bog-plant in the northern parts of Canada, resem- 

 bling Scirpus iu the details as to spikes, scales, etc., but differing 

 chiefly in this, that the bristles of the flowers are very delicate 

 and become very long after flowering, so that the spike in fruit 

 looks like a tuft of cotton. The culm of our plant is triangular, 

 though not manifestly so, and its leaves are hardly, if at all, 

 channelled. The spikes are several in number, and are on nod- 

 ding peduncles, and the involucre consists of 2 or 3 leaves. 

 Culm 15 or 20 inches high. 



