Echinolyt?um.~\ Cyperacece. 65 



solitary spikelets, and var. latifolia (F. latifolia, and torta, KtintJi), with 

 short, flat, curved, and twisted 1. 



Very closely allied to F. asperrima, which is a taller plant, with much 

 larger and broader 1., and a large umbel with very long foliaceous bracts. 

 The spikelets of the two are very similar, but none of the glumes of 

 asperrima are distichous, and the nut is much larger. A specimen of 

 junciformis in Herb. Peraden. is placed under asperrima (C. P. 83). — 



j. d: h. 



5. ECHINOLYTRUm, Desv. 



A small, densely tufted, glabrous annual, with capillary 

 root-fibres ; 1. shorter than the stem, capillary, sheath glabrous; 

 spikelets globose or ovoid, in simple or compound umbels 

 with filiform spreading rays, green ; bracts capillary; glumes 

 minute, densely imbricating, squarrosely spreading, oblong, 

 membranous, with a stout midrib, ending in a long stout 

 scaberulous recurved awn as long as itself, very persistent ; 

 stam. 1 or 2, anth. linear, subacute ; nut linear-oblong, bicon- 

 vex, straight or slightly incurved, faces quite smooth, sides 

 furnished with a series of few or many stoutly stipitate capitate 

 glands, very rarely naked ; style about as long as the nut, 

 filiform, glabrous, base slightly swollen, usually falling away 

 with the style, but sometimes persistent, stigmas 2, capillary. 

 — Monotypic. 



E. dipsaceum, Desv. Jonm. Bot. i. 21 (1! 



Isolepis dipsacea, R. et S. ; Thw. Enum. 350. Fimbristylis dipsacea^ 

 Benth. ex Clarke in Fl. B. Ind. vi. 635. C. P. 668. 



Fl. B. Ind. 1. c. Desv. 1. c. t. i. Rottb. Descr. et Ic. t. 12, f. 1 

 (Scirpus dipsaceits). 



Stem, 3-6 in., striate, green ; 1. 1-3 in., quite smooth, tip 

 acute ; sheath short, not scarious or membranous, umbel 1-2 

 in. broad, rays few or many, up to 1 in. long, spreading ; 

 bracts longer or shorter than the umbel ; spikelets globose 

 and iV-ir in. diam., or shortly oblong and up to \ in. long 

 by ^ diam., usually setaceously bracteolate ; glumes with the 

 awn iV-jo in. ; nut 3 V~ $■$ in. long, minutely transversely striate, 

 glands 8-10 on each side, rarely fewer, very rarely O, each 

 consisting of a spherical head formed of vesicular cells, 

 terminating in a stout tubular stipes ; seed loose in the thin 

 coriaceous pericarp. 



Damp sandy ground in the low country, especially in the dry region ; 

 rather common. 



Tiop. Asia and Africa. 



Very different in habit from any Fimbristylis ; remarkable for the 

 large stipitate capitate glands of the nut. — J. D. H. 



part v. F 



