TYPIIACE.T:. 5 



the apex (sterile stamens?). Female flowers without a perianth (?): 

 ovaries sessile or shortly stalked, free or united in pairs, surrounded by 

 3 to 6 imbricated membranous scales (abortive stamens?); style short; 

 stigma elongate, unilateral. Fruit rather large, subsessile or shortly 

 stalked, dry, subdrupaceous, with a woody endocarp and a spongy 

 epicarp. 



Aquatic plants with broadly linear distichous leaves and small 

 globular heads of flowers, the latter rising above the water, which the 

 leaves sometimes do, while in other cases they remain floating on the 

 surface. 



The name of tliis genus of plants is derived from the Greek word a:rapyayoi; a 

 band, in allusion to the ribbon-shaped leaves. (Diosc. iv. 23.) 



SPECIES I.-SPARGANIUM RAMOSUM. Huds. 



Plate MCCCLXXXVII. 



neich. Ic. Fl. Germ, et Helv. Vol. X. Tab. CCCXXVI. Fig. 751. 

 S. erectum, var. a. Lain. Spec. PI. p. 1378. Reich. I.e. p. 2. 



Radical leaves broadly linear, stiff, not floating, sharply keeled and 

 triquetrous at the base, with the lateral faces channeled ; stem leaves 

 with their sheaths not mflated. Flowering stem erect, stiff, branched 

 at the apex. Flower-heads in a panicle. Female flower-heads sessile 

 on the lateral branches of the panicle, 1 to 3 on each branch. j\lale 

 flower-heads very numerous, sessile towards the extremities of the 

 lateral branches and termination of the rachis of the panicle. Stigma 

 lanceolate-linear. Fruit sessile, prismatic-turbinate, %vith a couico- 

 pyramidal or ovate-pyramidal top abruptly acuminated into a shoi't 

 beak. Leaves green, not pellucid. 



In ditches and in shallow water by the sides of ponds and rivers. 

 Common and generally distributed, but rare in the north of Scotland, 

 though extending to Orkney. 



England, Scotland, Ireland. Perennial. Summer. 



Rootstock stoloniferous. Leaves numerous, 1^ to 5 feet long, h inch 

 to 1 inch broad, the radical ones slightly channeled towards the base 

 on the upper side, and \dt\\ concave lateral faces; stem leaves flat 

 from a sheatliing base ; lower bracts resembling the leaves, but shorter 

 and amplexicaul, not sheathing ; upper bracts much shorter than tlie 

 lower ones. Stem stout, rather shorter than the leaves, the upper part 

 Avith several alternate branches which have bracts at the base. Flower- 

 heads globose ; the female ones sessile along the branches, 1 or 2 placed 

 about the middle of each branch or the lowest one terminating the 

 branch. J\lale heads all sessile, olive-black before the anthers expand, 

 smaller thtm the female, very numerous, on the continuation of the 



