CTPEEACEiE. 543 



white, jointed fibres, and tufts of linear, very pointed, soft and pellucid 

 leaves, 1 to 3 inches long. Peduncles from a couple of inches to above a 

 foot high, enclosed at the base in a long sheath. Flower-head 2 to 4 lines 

 diameter, with very numerous minute flowers. Bracts and perianths of a 

 leaden colour, tipped with a few minute chaff-like hairs. Perianth-segments 

 4, with a minute black gland on the 2 inner ones. Stamens in the males 4. 

 Stigmas and lobes of the ovary in the females 2. 



A North American species, abundant in the lakes of the isles of Skye, 

 Coll, and a few of the neighbouring Hebrides, and of Connemara,in Ireland, 

 but not elsewhere in Europe. Fl. August. 



LXXXVII. THE SEDGE FAMILY. CTPEEACE^. 



Herbs, resembling in aspect the SusJies, or more frequently 

 tlie Grasses, but usually stiffer than the latter, with solid steins, 

 and the sheaths of the leaves closed all round. Flowers in 

 little green or brown spikes, called spihelets, which are either 

 solitary and terminal or several in a terminal (or apparently 

 lateral), simple or compound cluster, spike, umbel, or panicle. 

 Each spikelet is placed in the axil of a scale-like or leafy outer 

 iract, and consists of several scale-like, imbricated bracts, called 

 glumes, each containing in its axil one sessile flower. Perianth 

 either none or replaced by a few bristles or minute scales. 

 Stamens 3 or rarely 2. Ovary (in tbe same or in a distinct 

 glume) simple, 1-celled, the style more or less deeply divided 

 into 2 or 3 branches or linear stigmas. Fruit a small, seed- 

 like nut, flattened when the style is 2-cleft, triangular when, it 

 is 3-cleft, containing a single seed. 



A large family, abundantly distributed all over the globe, but more espe- 

 cially in moist situations or on the edges of waters. It is intermediate as it 

 were between the Bushes and the Grasses, distinguished from the former by 

 the absence of any regular perianth, from Grasses generally by the want of an 

 inner scale or palea between the flower and the axis of the spikelets ; by the 

 simple, not feathery, branches of the style ; besides that in most cases the 

 two families are readUy known by the sheath of the leaves closed round the 

 stem in the Sedges, slit open on the side opposite to the blade in the Grasses. 

 The glumes are also most frequently brown in the former, green or purpUsh 

 in the latter. 



Flowers unisextial, the stamens and ovaries under separate glumes, 

 either in the same or in separate spikelets. 

 Ovary enclosed in a little bottle-shaped utricle, the style protrud- 

 ing through a small aperture at the top 9. Caebx, 



Ovary partially enclosed in 1 or 2 glume-hke scales, open at the 



side 8. KoBBESlA. 



Flowers hermaphrodite, the stamens and ovaries under the same 

 glume. 

 Glumes in each apikelet arranged in (wo opposite rows. 

 All the glumes in each spikelet, except one outer one, contain- 

 ing flowers. Spikelets many, in a compound umbel ... 1. Ctperus. 

 Several of the lower glumes of each spikelet smaller and empty. 



Spikelets closely sessile, in compact terminal heads ... 2. Schcenus. 



L 



