88 Cyperacece. [Leph-onia. 



Stem as thick as a crow-quill or less, curved, hard, terete,, 

 internodes 2 in. long, sheaths rather longer than the inter- 

 nodes, tips long, acute ; branches erect or ascending, 3-5 in. 

 long, slender, simple, sheathed for two-thirds of their length,, 

 leafy above ; 1. subulate, concave or with infolded sides, dor- 

 sally rounded, i-veined ; head of spikelets about A in. long 

 and broad, sessile or shortly peduncled ; bracts like the upper 

 leaves but shorter; spikelets sessile, about f in. long and broad; 

 lowest glume small, next 2 above orbicular, concave, many- 

 veined, coriaceous, margins scarious ; fig. glume oblong, nearly 

 as long as the outer glumes, but much narrower, obtuse, dor- 

 sally rounded, smooth, shining, very thick, at length corky, 

 with narrow margins which embrace the nut ; nut T V in. long,; 

 brown, straight or slightly curved. 



Sandy sea-shore all round the island. Fl. April, October, &c. 



All Tropical shores. 



I have described this widely diffused plant after the Ceylon 

 specimens in Herb. Peraden. It appears to vary in habit in other 

 localities. — J. D. H. 



16. LEPIRONIA, L. C. Rich. 

 Rootstock stout, woody, creeping, root-fibres vermiform; 

 stems densely tufted, tall, cylindric, transversely septate 

 within, smooth, striate, sheathed below ; 1. o ; spikelets solitary, 

 lateral near the top of the stem, ellipsoid, obtuse, brown; 

 bract o, except the produced top of the stem ; glumes 

 many, closely spirally imbricate round the rhachilla, coria- 

 ceous, at length deciduous, all but a few lowest fig.; scales 

 8-1 1 or more, scarious, brown, 2 outer placed right and left,. 

 linear-oblong, obtuse, concave, keeled, keel ciliate, the rest 

 linear-lanceolate, acute, fiat, 3 uppermost quasi-whorled ; stam.. 

 8 or more, one in the axil of each of the keeled scales, others- 

 solitary in the axils of some of the inner scales, uppermost 

 scales empty, fill, long, slender, anth. 3, linear, mueronate;. 

 ov. central amongst the scales, flat, sessile, style short, stigmas 

 2; nut broadly obovoid, compressed, plano-convex, strongly 

 beaked, sides obscurely undulate, margins acute. — Monotypic. 



Xi. mucronata, Rich, in Pets. Syn. i. 70 (1805). Etapan, S. 



Thw. Enum 346. C. P. 3228. 



Fl. B. Ind. vi. 684. Miq. 111. Fl. Arch. Ind. t. 20. 



Rootstock clothed with short brown scales; stems 2-3 ft,, 

 as thick as a small goose-quill at the base, tapering upwards- 

 to the acicular stiff tip, green, rigid, septa close together, 3-6- 



