78 Cypei'CLCecZ. [Websteria. 



beaked, dull brown, smooth, rather shining, either broadly 

 obovoid, turgid, tV~tt i n - l° n §;> or larger, longer, more 

 flattened, and nearly T V in. long, style slender, stigmas 2. 



Tidal mouths of rivers, in brackish water; rather rare. Kalutara ; 

 old mouth of Kelani, Colombo. Fl. Dec, April. 

 Also in Europe, W. Asia, Africa, Australia. 



9. WEBSTERIA,* iT. H. Wright. 



A submerged leafless aquatic, with filiform umbellately 

 branched stems, bearing pseudo-whorled fascicles of capillary 

 leaves at the nodes; spikelets solitary, on filiform peduncles 

 from amongst the leafing nodes ; glumes 2, elongate-lanceo- 

 late, lower empty, upper with one bisexual fl. ; hypogynous 

 bristles 6-10, retrorsely spinulose; stam. 2-3, exserted at the 

 top of the glume, fil. flattened, anth. linear, very slender, tip 

 apiculate; ov. obovoid, flattened, style very slender, base 

 conical, stigmas 2 or 3, filiform ; nut broadly obovoid, long- 

 beaked by the persistent style-base, biconvex, sides rounded, 

 smooth, pale^ — Monotypic. 



W. limnophila, S. H. Wright in Bull. Torr. Club, xiv. 135 (18S7). 

 Scirpus siibmersus, Sauvalle, Fl. Cub. 175. Rhynchospora ruppioides, 

 Benth. in Hook. Ic. PI. xiv. 31. Trim. Syst. Cat. Ceyl. 103. C. P. 3936. 

 Fl. B. Ind. vi. 653 (Scirpus submersus). Hook. Ic. t. 1344. 



Whole plant flaccid, tassel-like when lifted out of the 

 water; stems 12 in. long and upwards, rooting in the mud; 

 lower internodes elongate, terete, smooth, upper shorter; 

 fascicles of 1. at the nodes, with minute hyaline bracts at the 

 base; 1. very numerous, 1-4 in. long, ultra-capillary, tubular, 

 sheaths short, hyaline; ped. |— 10 in. long, filiform, smooth, 

 4-fistular, base often rooting, enclosed in a hyaline sheath; 

 spikelets J— \ in. ; glumes erect, membranous, with hyaline 

 margins, green, tips narrowed, lower 3-veined, upper rather 

 longer, 1 -veined; bristles longer or shorter than the nut, 

 yellow; nut, with its long beak \- \ in., tip of beak black 

 where the true style has rotted away, pericarp thick. 



In deep ditches. Cinnamon Gardens, Colombo (Ferguson). Fl. Feb. 

 to June. 



Java, Madagascar, Trop. America. 



Clarke describes (Fl. Brit. Ind.) an upper male or empty glume as 

 sometimes present. The description in Hook. Ic. Plant, is inaccurate, 

 and does not accord with the accompanying figure. 



* Commemorates Mr. G. W. Webster, of Florida, who first found the 

 plant in fruit in America. 



