CYPERUSES 633 
which is forced off as the bracts develop. After the fertilisation of the 
flowers, the bracts assume a deep green tint, grow large, and look like 
tufts of leaves, among which the large, beaked carpels will be found. 
Each contains about four seeds. The species are natives of Tropical and 
Temperate Asia, Africa, and Australia. 
APONOGETON DISTACHYUM (two-spiked), The Cape 
Principal Specie* Pond-Weed or Water Hawthorn. Leaves oblong, lance- 
shaped, long-stalked, floating. Flowers fragrant, like Hawthorn; spikes 
forked; bracts white, oval; anthers purplish. Hardy. Introduced from 
the Cape of Good Hope, 1788. Plate 297. There is a var. rosewm in 
which the bracts are rosy-tinted. 
In some parts of the country this beautiful pond- 
.weed has been naturalised in lakes and large ponds. 
Cultivation is a very simple affair with it. All that is necessary is to 
give it a good start until it can get its roots well into the bed of the 
pond—that is, if it is to be grown in a pond. For a small tank or 
aquarium, it should be potted in a compost of sandy loam and rotted 
cow-manure, well mixed, and the whole carefully sunk. If desired to 
naturalise it in a larger piece of water, the plant should first be grown 
in a tank until quite established, then repotted with the compost men- 
tioned, and sunk into the mud, with a clear foot of water above the rim 
of the pot. Before immersing the pot, crack it, so that the growth of 
the roots may burst it open and allow them free exit to the surrounding 
soil. After this is effected the plant will rapidly increase, and the ripe 
seeds fall to the bottom and germinate. 
Description of Aponogeton distachywm, the Cape Pond-Weed. 
Leaves, flowers, and rhizome, natural size. The lower leaf 
has the two edges rolled inwards, the usual condition when immature. 
Fig. 1 is a separated bract, with its stamens and carpels; 2 is the same 
after fertilisation of the carpels and falling off of the stamens; 3 is a 
single seed; 4, a vertical section of a fruit, showing a seed within; 5, a 
transverse section of the same, showing two seeds cut through. 
Cultivation. 
CYPERUSES 
Natural Order CyPERACcEm. Genus peel 
Cyperus (the old Greek name for these plants). A”genus of about seven 
hundred species of Rush-like or Grass-like perennial (rarely annual) 
herbs, with three-sided, jointless, solid stems. Leaves with basal sheaths, 
IV.—35 
