the stigmas is always 2, rather long. The prophyllums of the staminate flowers are 

 narrow, clapped in a boat's shape, pointed above, from 3 to 4 mm. long, generally 

 furnished with a more or less distinct keel. The structure of the flower cluster is also, 

 besides the 2 stigmas, one of the chief characters of this species. The flower cluster is 

 generally of the same type as in the widely distributed Cobresia caricina, branched, 

 and, accordingly, belonging to sect. Eucobresia. But owing to the fact that the upper spikes 

 (spiculae propriae) are so much reduced, only containing one spikelet each, the flower 

 cluster is at the summit really made up of a single terminal spike of the Elyna type. 

 Add to this that in not quite well developed specimens the lower branches of the spike 

 are also, at times, reduced to consisting only of one spikelet each, whereby the whole 

 flower cluster is really formed from one terminal, linear spike, quite like Elgna. From 

 this appears that the characters upon which the difference between the genera of 

 Cobresia and Elyna are based, are of a very dubious systematic value, and, when com- 

 bined in this way, not only in the very same species, but even in the very same indi- 

 vidual, they will be seen to he so insignificant that it is hardly possible to separate these 

 2 genera only upon this character. Kukenthal has, accordingly (1909), withdrawn the 

 genus of Elyna as a section of Cobresia comprising the species having one linear 

 terminal spike. 



Scirpus pahister L. Spec. PI. ed. II (1762) p. 70. Eleocharis palustris R. Br. Prodr. 

 Fl. N. Holl. (ed. Nees) I (1810) p. 80; Ledeb. Fl. Alt. I, p. 69; Turczan. Cat. Baical. no. 

 1190; Karel. et Kiril. Enum. PI. Fl. Alt. no. 883; Ledeb. Fl. Ross. IV, p. 244; Turczan. 

 Fl. Baical.-Dahur. (1855, II) p. 311, no. 1204. Heleocharis palustris R. Br„ KpBijr. $j. Ajit. 

 VI (1912) p. 1422. 



Rather common in moist, grass-grown, and irrigated places on the islets in the 

 rivers Yenisei and Abakan, as well as in moist or irrigated depressions on the Abakan 

 Steppe, near the river. Taken flowering in June. Specimens taken in different loca- 

 lities vary considerably in the length and thickness of the culms. Near Askys I have 

 gathered a form with very slender and finely striped culms, about 40 cm. high. Hereby 

 it recalls /. filiculmis (Schur.) Aschers. et Graebn., but differs from the latter in its 

 large spikes, to 10 mm. long. In drier places the spikes become smaller, rounder, and 

 few-flowered. 



Distribution: Over the greater part of the globe. 



Scirpus uniglumis Link, Jahrb. d. Gew. I, 3 (1818) p. 77. Eleocharis iiniglumis 

 Schult. Mant. in Syst. Veget. II (1828) p. 88; Ledeb. Fl. Ross. IV, p. 245. Heleocharis 

 palustris R. Br. /J uniglumis Schult., KptiJi. cijj. a.it. VI (1912) p. 1422. Eleocharis affinis 

 C. A. Meyer, Beitr. Pflanzenk. Russ. Reich. VIII (1851) p. 261. 



In irrigated places near the river Abakan, at Uibat. In full flower at the end 

 of June. 



Distribution: The greater part of Europe, south-western Asia, Siberia. 



19 169 



