ALISALACE^E 585 



midrib, sheathed at the base by the cotyledon. Primary root 

 elongated and furnished with root-hairs. Adventitious roots also 

 from the first node well furnished with root-hairs. 



CYPERACE.E. 



Benth. et Hook. Gen. PL iii. 1037. 



Fruit and Seed. The ovary is entire, erect and sessile in the 

 centre of the flower, or sometimes placed on a short stalk which 

 may be thickened or expanded to form a disc. It is one-celled 

 and contains a solitary anatropous ovule, erect from the base. 

 The fruit is small, covered by the glume or protruded beyond it, 

 nut-like and indehiscent ; when the style is bifid, it is more 

 or less flattened or biconvex, and with a trifid style obscurely 

 or distinctly trigonous. The pericarp is crustaceous and 

 hardened or sometimes subclrupaceous, the exocarp thin or 

 suberously thickened, the endocarp hard. The seed is erect 

 from the base of the fruit, free ('? always) from the pericarp, 

 and has a thin testa. The small embryo is lenticular, globose 

 or ovoid and situated within the base of the copious farina- 

 ceous or fleshy endosperm. 



Seedling. Poiteau l in 1808 recognised that the germina- 

 tion of the Cyperacese differed from that of Graminese, resem- 

 bling that of Palms and Liliacese, while Klebs in his recent 

 memoir 2 separates it as a distinct monocotyledonous type. 

 Unlike that of Grasses, the germination in this Order has been 

 little investigated. Mirbel 3 describes and figures that of Carex 

 maxima, and Richard 4 that of Scirpus supinus ; but beyond 

 this we have little information on the subject till Klebs' 

 memoir. 



According to the last author the process is very uniform in 

 the different genera and species investigated (Scirpus lacustris, 



1 Ann. Mus. d'Hist. Nat. xiii. Paris, 1809. 



2 ' Beitriige zur Morphologic u. Biologie der Keimung,' in Pfeffer's Untersucli. 

 aus d. Bot. Inst. Tubingen, i. p. 571. 



3 Ann. Mus. d'Hist. Nat. xvi. p. 437 (PI. i.) Paris, 1810. 

 1 Ibid. xvii. pp. 228-9 (PI. v. fig. 17). Paris, 1811. 



