Fimbristyiis.} Cyperacece. 6 1 



sheath short, membranous; umbel subsimple, or subcompound, 

 rays 2-4, with 1 or 2 spikelets on each, \-\ in., filiform, 

 spreading or recurved ; bracts very short, setiform ; spikelets 

 \-^ in., ovoid or oblong-ovoid, obtuse or acute, flattened, dark 

 brown, lowest glumes very small, deciduous, rhachilla squar- 

 rose, pits large with hyaline margins ; glumes laxly sub- 

 distichously imbricate, T V in. long, orbicular-ovate, apiculate, 

 coriaceous with broad hyaline margins, keel 3-veined, dark 

 brown, percurrent ; stam. 3, anth. with an acute tip ; nut 

 stipitate, globosely obovoid, obtusely trigonous, 2V in. long, 

 minutely tubercled and sometimes echinulate here and there, 

 style rather longer than the nut, more or less villous to the 

 swollen base, stigmas 3. 



Lower montane zone ; rare. Ambagamuwa ; Kelebokka. 



Also in hills of S. India. 



Clarke (Fl. B. Ind. 1. c.) describes the nut as acutely trigonous, with 

 the outermost cells in 12-13 irregular vertical series, and places the 

 species in section Trichelostylis ; but the lower glumes of the spikelets 

 are clearly distichous in the Ceylon plant. 



24. F. cinnamometorum, Kunth, Enum. ii. 229 (1837). 



Scirpus cinnamometorum, Vahl, Enum. ii. 278. Moon, Cat. 6. 

 .Abildgaardia cinnamometorian, Thw. Enum. 347. F. cyperoides, Br.; 

 Trim. Syst. Cat. 101. C P. 2752. 



Fl. B. Ind. vi. 650 (F. cyperoides, var.). 



Densely tufted, rootstock small, hard, root-fibres filiform ; 

 stem 6-24 in., very slender, leafy, subterete, striate; 1. many 

 at the base of the stem, filiform, flexuous, mostly shorter than 

 the stem, and even more slender, flexuous, grooved along the 

 middle, sheath coriaceous with scarious margins ; umbel de- 

 compound, 1-3 in. broad, very lax and open, rays few, 

 capillary, spreading, bearing many distant spreading pedicelled 

 small brown spikelets; bracts much shorter than the umbel, 

 one filiform, the rest subulate ; spikelets \-\ in., oblong or 

 linear-oblong, much compressed, few-fid., lower glumes dis- 

 tichous, 3 lowest smaller, empty, rhachilla not winged, nodes 

 angular ; glumes oblong-ovate, \-\ in., obtuse, membra- 

 nous, sides scabrid, margins pale, keel slender, vanishing 

 below the tip, veins o; stam. 3, anth. very slender, tip seta- 

 ceous ; nut 3V in., minutely stipitate, narrowly obovoid, trigo- 

 nous, striate, pale, style 3-4 times as long as the nut, very 

 slender, glabrous, base conical, stigmas 3, short. 



Wet places, as paddy fields, in the low country; rather common. 

 Kalutara; Ratnapura; Hewaheta; Ramboda; Henantagola; patanas 

 of Uva and the Central Provinces, up to 5000 ft. (Pearson). 



Also in Burma and China. 



Clarke, following Bentham and others, regards F. cinnamometorum 

 as a variety of the F. cyperoides, Br. of Australia and the Philippines, 



