ERIOCAULONACE.E. (PIPEWORT FAMILY.) 549 



Order 126. ERIOCAULONACEJE. (Pipewort Family.) 



Aquatic or marsh herbs, stemless or short-stemmed, with a tuft of fibrous 

 roots, a cluster of linear and often loosely cellular grass-like leaves, and 

 nah <l scapes sheathed at the base, bearing dense heads of monoecious or 

 rarely dicecious small 2 - 3-merous flowers, each in the axil of a scarious 

 bract; the perianth double or rarely simple, chaffy; anthers introrse; the 

 fruit a 2-3-celled 2-3-seeded pod: the ovules, seeds, embryo, &c. as in 

 the preceding order. — Chiefly tropical plants, a few in northern temper- 

 ate regions. 



1. Eriocnulon. Perianth double, the inner (corolla) tubular-funnel -form in the staminate 



flowers ; the stamens twice as many as its lobes (4 or 6). Anthers 2-celled. 



2. Prepalaiithus. Perianth as in the last : the stamens only as many as the lobes of the 



inner series, or corolla (3). Anthers 2-celled. 



3. Laehimcaulou. Perianth simple, of 3 sepals. Stamens 3, monadelphous below. An- 



thers 1-celled. 



1. ERIOCAULON, L. Pipewort. 



Flowers monoecious and androgynous, i. e. both kinds in the same head, either 

 intermixed, or the central ones sterile and the exterior fertile, rarely dioecious. 

 Ster. Fl. Calyx of 2 or 3 keeled or boat-shaped sepals, usually spatulate or 

 dilated upwards. Corolla tubular, 2 -3-lobed, each of the lobes bearing a black . 

 gland or spot. Stamens twice as many as the lobes of the corolla, one inserted 

 at the base of each lobe and one in each sinus : anthers 2-celled. Pistils rudi- 

 mentary. Fert. Fl. Calyx as in the sterile flowers, often remote from the rest 

 of the flower (therefore perhaps to be viewed as a pair of bractlets). Corolla 

 of 2 or 3 separate narrow petals. Stamens none. Ovary often stalked, 2-3- 

 lobed, 2-3-cellcd, with a single ovule in each cell: style 1 : stigmas 2 or 3, 

 slender. Pod membranaceous, loculicidal. — Leaves mostly smooth, loosely cel- 

 lular and pellucid, flat or concave above. Scapes or peduncles terminated by a 

 single head, which is involucrate by some outer empty bracts. Flowers, also 

 the tips of the bracts, &c, usually white-bearded or woolly. (Name compounded 

 of epiov, wool, and <av\6s, a stalk, from the wool at the base of the scape and 

 leaves of the original species. Excepting this and the flowers, our species are 

 wholly glabrous.) — The North American species are all stemless, with a 

 depressed head, and have the parts of the flowers in twos, the stamens 4. 



1. E. decangulare, L, (syn. Pluk. &c.) Leaves obtuse, varying from 

 linear-lanceolate to linear-awl-shaped, rather rigid; scapes 10-12-ribbed (1 

 3° high; head hemispherical, becoming globular (2" -7" wide); scales of the 

 involucre acutish, straw-color or light brown ;' chaff (bracts among the flowers) 

 pointed. (E. serdtinum, Walt.) — Pine-barren swamps (New Jersey ?) Virginia, 

 and southward. July - Sept. 



2. E. gnaphalddes, Michx. Leaves spreading (2' -5' long), yrassy-awl- i 

 shaped, rigid, or when submersed thin and pellucid, tapering gradually to a ly)j / 

 sharp point, mostly shorter than the sheath of the 10-ribbed scape; scales of the^ 

 involucre very obtuse, turning lead-color ; chaff obtuse. (E. decangulare, L., in 



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