1720 CL. CENTEOLEPIDE^. [Cejitrolepis. 



hispid with long rigid hairs, IJ to 2 lines long, with glabrous awns about the 

 length of the bract or that of the lower bract longer. Flowers 4 to 8 in each 

 bract, a hyahne scale under each stamen often as long as the bract and toothed 

 at the end, and usually but not always a smaller scale under or by the side of 

 each ovary. Carpels of the ovary 2 to 4, usually 8 ; styles nearly free.— Desv. 

 in Ann. Sc. Nat. ser. 1, xiii. t. 2 ; Endl. Iconogr. t. 49 ; Hook. f. Fl. Tasm. ii. 

 77 ; Hieron. Centrol. 102 ; C. cuspidigera, Eudge in Trans. Linn. Soc. x. 283, t. 

 12 ; Besvauxia Billardieri, E. Br. Prod. 252 ; B. longifolia, Gaudich in Freyc. 

 Voy. Bot. 418. 

 Hab.: Stanthorpe. 



6. C. exserta (exserted), Rcem. et Schiilt. Syst. i. 41 ; Benth. Fl. Austr. vii. 

 208. Leaves shortly hairy, under lin. long. Scapes slender, pubescent or 

 glabrous, 1 to Sin. high. Floral bracts placed near together, very spreading, 

 ovate-lanceolate, shortly awned or mucronate, hispid, about 2 lines long. Flowers- 

 numerous in each bract ; hyaline scales usually 2 to each flower, nearly as long 

 as the outer bract, often jagged at the end, and sometimes a third srnall one. 

 Carpels of the ovary 6 to 10 ; styles very shortly connate. —Hieron. Centrol. 101; 

 Besvauxia exserta, E. Br. Prod. 253; Guillem. Ic. PL Austr. t. 17. 

 Hab.: Endeavour Eiver, Banks and Solander. 



Var. rvbra. A smaller plant, the most parts being of a purplish or reddish colour. 

 Hab.; Fraser's Island, Hon. Miss Lovell. 



Order OLI. RESTIACE^. 



Flowers unisexual, or very rarely and exceptionally hermaphrodite, mostljr 

 dioecious, either in spikelets, with imbricate dry rigid bracts or ffbimes, 1 under- 

 each flower and usually a few outer ones empty, or in 2 genera in narrow or 

 spikelike panicles, the glumes not imbricate. Perianth of 6, rarely 5, 4 or 3- 

 glume-like or soarious erect segments in 2 rows. Male flower : Stamens 3, 

 filaments filiform and free or united in a column ; anthers oblong 1-celled and 

 dorsally attached, or in 3 genera 2-celled with the cells dorsally attached in the 

 centre only, the cells always opening by a longitudinal slit, a rudimentary ovary- 

 occasionally present in the centre of the flower. Female flower : Staminodia in 

 some species 3, short or filiform with or without rudimentary anthers, in others 

 entirely wanting. Ovary sessile or shortly stipitate, 1, 2 or 3-celled with one 

 pendulous ovule in each cell. Styles as many as cells, usually long linear or 

 filiform and stigmatic along the inner side from below the middle or almost to 

 the base, all free or more or less united at the base. Fruit dry, often hard,. 

 usually small, either 2 or 3-celled and 2 or 3-angled, opening along the angles, 

 or 1-celled and either opening along 1-side, or an indehiscent nut. Seeds 1 in 

 each cell, attached at or near the top, usually striate or minutely tubercular- 

 rugose ; testa appressed ; albumen usually mealy. Embryo small, lenticular or 

 oboYoid, at the base of the albumen at the end remote from the hilum. — Herbs- 

 usually perennial, with a rush-hke or sedge-like habit, either with a tufted base 

 or hard horizontal or creeping rhizome usually covered with closely imbricate 

 scales. Stems simple or branched, erect or flexuose and variously twisted. 

 Leaves none or few, radical and long-linear or sedge-like, but the stems usually 

 bear at the base several closely imbricate dry scales and higher up a few sheath- 

 ing scales the margins closed but not connate into a cylinder at least at the base, 

 occasionally opening at the upper end and often bearing a short or lengthened 

 point or imperfect lamina, the upper sheaths, under the inflorescence and its 

 branches, transformed into floral bracts, usually shorter, broader and more open- 

 than the stem-sheaths, and sometimes the last long broad and spatha-like. 

 Spikelets solitary or clustered and sessile or pedicellate within each floral bracts 



