256 PATAGONIAN EXPEDITIONS I BOTANY. 



4. C. QUILA Kunth. (C. valdimensis Desv.) Quila. 



Culm much branching. Internodes crowded, smooth. Branches fas- 

 ciculately arising from the nodes, spreading, 4-5-leaved, smooth. Leaves 

 lanceolate, 6-12 cm. by 4-6 mm., subattenuate at base and with a short 

 petiole, glaucous-pilose underneath. Panicle 3-10 cm. long, becoming 

 rigidly divaricate. Rachis angled, sulcate ; pedicels puberulous. Spike- 

 lets ovate, shining, nervose. Empty glumes lanceolate-cuspidate, exceed- 

 ing the neuter subequal flowers. Floral glume of second flower shorter 

 than the terminal flower. 



(Chili); W. Patagon. (Supra, p. 5.) 



Family i i . CYPERACE.E. The Sedges. 



Grass-like or rush-like plants, usually with solid trigonous stems and 

 narrow, mostly 3-ranked, leaves from closed sheaths. Spikelets glumif- 

 erous, each with one glume subtending i or rarely 2 flowers ; the spike- 

 lets solitary or clustered. Flowers mostly diclinous with hypogynous 

 perianth, consisting of bristles or scales, or without perianth. Stamens 

 1-3, rarely more, filaments slender. Ovary i-locular, i-ovuled; style 

 2-3-cleft or subsimple. Achene lens-shaped or trigonous. Endosperm 

 mealy, enclosing in the center a minute embryo. The leaves are usually 

 hard and sharp-edged and consequently unfit for fodder. 



Species about 3,000, cosmopolitan, chiefly growing in damp places. 



KEY TO THE GENERA. 



A. Hermaphrodite ; though some of the flowers may be imperfect. 

 Bristles or scales mostly representing a perianth. 

 b. Spikelets numerous. 



Perianth-bristles 6, feathery, persisting. Spikelets 1-2 -flowered. I. Carpha. 



Perianth none. Glumes 2-ranked. 2. Cyperus. 



Perianth-bristles 6, or i, or o. Glumes spirally arranged. 3. Scirpus. 



bb. Spikelet i, terminal. 



Several -flowered. Styles thickened, forming a rostrum on the achene. 



Perianth-bristles 3-8, mostly 6. 4. Heleocharis. 



Perianth none. Stamens 1-3. {Kmbristylis p. p.) 5. Stenophyllus. 



i-, rarely 2-flowered. No rostrum. Leaves 2-ranked. 6 perianth-scales. 



6. Oreobolus. 

 bbb. Spikelets panicled, few-flowered, with two-ranked glumes. 



Perianth of 6 setae or none. Achene obtuse, drupe-like. 7. Elynanthus. 



