Minnesota Plant Life. 



213 



Cyperus-sedges. Here are included the Cyperus plants. To 

 this genus the familiar umbrella-plants of window gardeners 

 belong and here, too, is to be placed the papyrus of Egypt, 

 famous in ancient days as a substitute for paper. The papyrus 

 stems were pounded out into flat plates which, matted together, 

 furnished the papyrus rolls upon which so many ancient manu- 

 scripts are written. In Minnesota the Cyperus sedges are found 

 principally along the muddy borders of ponds and streams, in 

 marshes, ditches and wet places. In many of them the stem is 

 triangular with most of the leaves clustered at the base. The 

 spikes are often borne in the kind of cluster known as an umbel, 



FIG. 94. L,ake border vegetation. Bulrushes and reed-grasses. After photograph by 



Williams. 



of which the parsley family furnishes such good examples. 

 Sometimes these umbels are loose and compound, in other spe- 

 cies they are compacted into almost globose heads, while in still 

 others they are lax and simple. 



Cotton-grasses. In this family are the cotton-grasses, such 

 characteristic plants of the tamarack swamps and peat-bogs of 

 the state. The fruits of the cotton-grasses are clothed with 

 white bristles growing up from under their bases so that the 

 head of a cotton-grass looks much like a tuft of cotton at the 

 end of a slender stem. There are several varieties in Minne- 

 sota. 



