Fimbristylis?\ Cyperacetz. 5 1 



upper xo i 11 -) oblong-ovate, all shortly cuspidate, red-brown, 

 strongly keeled, keel 1-3-veined, green ; stam. 1-3, anth. 

 small, obtuse ; nut -£$ in., broadly obovate or subcordate, 

 minutely stipitate, compressed, biconvex, with 6-9 low broad 

 trabeculate ribs, pale straw-col'd., style twice as long, copiously 

 villous above the middle, base wilh a small globose bulb, 

 stigmas 2. 



Low country; apparently rather rare. Dumbara; Uva Prov. 



Throughout warm regions of Old World. 



Often confused with F. difihylla, which is normally perennial. 



7. F. aestivalis, Va/il, Enum. ii. 288 (1806). 



Scirpus ceslivalis, Retz. Obs. iv. 12. Trim. Syst. Cat. Ceyl. 101 

 (excl. syn.). C. P. 3943 (in part). 

 Fl. B. Ind. vi. 637 (in part). 



A dwarf, densely tufted annual, root-fibres capillary; stem 

 2-6 in., filiform, grooved, smooth; 1. shorter than the stem, 

 almost filiform, T V i n - broad or less, sparsely hairy, sheath 

 pubescent, open; umbel compound or decompound, i-i|- in. 

 broad, rays many, spreading, short, filiform; bracts short, 

 rarely exceeding the umbel, glabrous or pubescent ; spikelets 

 ^— \ in., rather crowded, linear-oblong, T V in - diam., dark brown, 

 subsquarrose, 1 or 2 lowest glumes longest, with an hispidulous 

 keel, rhachilla slender, prominently scarred; glumes laxly 

 imbricate, all, even the lowest fertile, -^ in. long, recurved, 

 oblong, cuspidate, cusp ^-\ the length of the glume, 1 -veined, 

 keeled; stam. I, anth. very small; nut -^ in. long, obovate, 

 smooth, much compressed, biconvex, base subacute, margins 

 acute, pale straw-col'd., style twice as long as the nut, nearly 

 glabrous, bulbous base naked, stigmas 2. 



Ceylon (Kcenig in Herb. Mus. Brit). Also collected at Colombo, 

 first by Ferguson in 1867, but, doubtless, occurs elsewhere. Fl. April (?). 



Southern India (?). 



Clarke considers this as identical with a very widely distributed 

 Indian, Malayan, and Australian plant, which is Wallich's 35 16 A and 

 3517 B, D, E. I, on the other hand, regard it as a distinct and local plant, 

 first found in Ceylon by Kcenig, and of which there are, as Mr. Rendle 

 informs me, specimens in the British Museum. It is certainly the F. 

 cestivalis of Wight's Catalogue, No. 1880, where Wallich's 35 16 A and 

 3517 c are erroneously cited as conspecific. The latter, a widely dis- 

 tributed Indian, Malayan, and Australian species, not hitherto found in 

 Ceylon, is a taller, more slender plant, with looser umbels, smaller 

 spikes, shorter cusps of the glumes, which have never a squarrose 

 appearance, and a short tip of the nut. It more nearly resembles F. 

 Trimeni, and is F. trichoides, Miquel, Fl. Ind. Bat. iii. 319, and F. 

 Griffithiana, Steud. Syn. Cyp. no, both published in 1855. F. Grzffithu, 

 Boeck. in Flora, xliii. 241 (i860). There is no habitat given with Wight's 

 specimen, which, like a good many others of his unlocalised plants, is 

 probably from Ceylon. — J. D. H. 



