Revision of the Genus Scleria. 23 1 



* * Achenium with short, transverse ridges, or by additional 

 longitudinal ridges, somewhat reticulated ; scales naked. 



II. S. vertlcillata, Mulil. Culms slender, simple, 4— 24 inches high, 

 smooth ; leaves narrowly linear and, with their sheaths, smooth, or some- 

 what hair} 7 ; clusters of flowers 3 — 9, sessile, generally erect ; bracts seta- 

 ceous ; scales smooth ; achenium globose, half a line broad, somewhat tri- 

 angular at the base, its sides destitute of pores ; perigynium none. 



In Willd., Sp. PI., iv, 317 ; Gram., 266 ; Ell., Sketch, ii, 561 ; Pursh, Flor. 

 Amer. Sept., i, 45 ; Spreng , Syst, Veg\, iii, 832 ; Eaton and Wright, 419 ; 

 Torrey, Compend., 349 ; Flor. N. Y., ii, 369; Steud., Syn., 176 ; Eaton. 

 454 ; Gray, Manual, 571 ; Chapman, 532 ; Wood, Class-book, 747 ; Bot. and 

 Flor., 368 ; Boeckeler. Linnasa, xxxviii, 445. 



Hypoporum verticillatum, Nees, Linnaea, ix, 303; Torrey, Ann. Lye, iii, 

 384. 



Habitat, Long Island, Eastern Massachusetts, Southern Cana- 

 da, Michigan and southward. Also in Texas, Mexico, and Cuba. 

 I have found the achenium of this species reticulated only in 

 southern specimens ; the northern forms produce achenia which 

 are marked with short, distinct, transverse ridges ; in a plant 

 from Biscay ne Bay, Florida, (E. Palmer, 1874) nuts with each 

 style of ornamentation occur. 



It is allied to the East Indian and African S. pergracilis, 

 Kunth, Enum., ii, 354, as has been remarked by Dr. Torrey 

 (Ann. Lye, iii, 384), which may however be distinguished by its 

 rather tuberculate achenium, and oblong or ovate bracts.* 



* Here may be noted 



S. tenella, Kunth, Enum., ii, 352. Culms slender ; inflorescence branched 

 or simple ; achenium finely reticulated, one half the size of that of S. verti- 

 clllaia. 



Boeckeler (Linnsea, xxxviii, 446), unites this species with the last ; but I 

 believe them to be distinct. S. tenella grows in Cuba, Mexico, Columbia, 

 Guiana and Brazil. It is figured in Mart.. Flor. Bras., i, pt. ii, 171, t. 9, 

 fig. 2. S. verticillata is said by Boeckeler (ibid.), to occur in Sierra Leone ; 

 but as he regards the species as inseparable, I cannot say which is meant. 

 I have seen no African specimens of either. 



