Mesomdmia.] CLII. CYPERACE.E. 1783 



Ovary oblong, tapering into tho continuous style. Nut angular, about 2 lines 

 long.— Carpha deusta, R. Br. Prod. 230 ; BoeCkel. in Linnasa, xxxviii. 269 ; 



'Chwtospora deusta, F. v. M. Fragm. ix. 39 ; Rhynckospora deusta, Sprong. 9yst. i. 

 195 ; Desvauxia aristata, Nees. in Sieb. Agrostoth. n. 25. 

 Hab.: Brisbane Eiver anil many other southern localities. 



2, M. sphaerocephala (round-headed), Benth. Fl. Austr. vii. 380. Stems 

 in large tufts 3 to 6ft. high, slender but rigid, usually compressed or 3-angled 

 under the inflorescence. Leaves at the base of the stem, long, rigid, flat or 

 ^concave, rarely above 1 line broad, but dilated at the base into open brown 

 sheaths fringed with long woolly hairs. Flower-heads very compound and dense, 

 globular, about |in. diameter. Involucral bracts very broadly ovate or orbicular, 

 as long as or rather longer than the spikelets ; one outer one tapering to an 

 obtuse point usually very short but sometimes longer and leaflike, all the others 

 very broad and obtuse, and several similar bracts prominent within the head. 

 Spikelets very numerous, somewhat compressed, 2 to 3 lines long. Flowers 2 

 close together, the outer one male the upper hermaphrodite. Glumes obscurely 

 distichous, 4 or 5 outer ones very broad and obtuse gradually shorter, flowering 

 glumes "nearly twice as long, broad and completely enveloping each other, the 

 ■outer one rigid, the inner more membranous. Hypogynous bristles 3, short and 

 slender. Stamens 3. Style-branches 3. Nut obovoid, seated on a raised torus 

 or thick stipes, crowned by the narrow pubescent base of the style. — Chmtospora 

 splmroceplmla, E. Br. Prod. 283; Boeckel. in Linnaja, xxxviii. 299; F. v. M. 

 Fragm. ix. 33 ; Gymmschmnus spharocephalus, Hook. f. Fl. Tasm. ii. 83, t. 142 ; 

 Xyris lavis, Nees in Sieb. PI. Nov. Holl. n. 201 ; Gymnoschmnus adiistus, Nees 

 in Ann. Nat. Hist. ser. i. vi. 47. 

 Hab : Northern border ot N.S.W., near Wallangarra. 



18. SCHCENUS, Linn. 



(From cord having been made from these plants.) 



(Chffitospora, R. Br. ; laoschoenus and Helothrix, Nees ; Gymnoch83ta,..9(t'U(Z.) 



Spikelets variously capitate paniculate or solitary, with 2 or more (rarely 6) 

 flowers, all hermaphrodite and fertile or the uppermost sterile. Glumes 

 distichous, several outer ones or sometimes only 2 or 1 empty, the rhachis very 

 short and straight between the empty glumes, more or less elongated and curved 

 between the flowering glumes and flexuose, the flowers seated in the alternate 

 notches, and the rhachis shortly produced above the last flower bearing a small 

 empty glume. Hypogynous bristles or sometimes scales 6, or few and unequal, 

 or none, often ciliate at or near the base, rarely much longer than the nut. 

 Stamens 3 or very rarely 4 to 6 or only 1. Style slender or rarely slightly 

 thickened towards the base,'deciduous ; stigmatic branches 3, filiform, sometimes 

 almost plumose. Nut obovoid, ovoid or rarely oblong or globular, more or less 

 distinctly S-etWgled or 3-ribbed, smooth reticulate foveolate or tuberculate. — 

 Usually 'perennials,, the stems often rigid and leafless below the inflorescence. 

 Leaves either radical or at the base of the stem, narrow or subulate or reduced to 

 the brown sheaths, or in a few species the stem leafy, either tall and rigid or 

 short and weak or filiform and floating. Spikelets when capitate in sessile 

 ■clusters within the head, the clusters and spikelets subtended by glume-like 

 bracts, and the outer bracts of the head forming an involucre with or without 

 leaflike lamin© ; when paniculate the peduncles spikelets or branches of the 

 ipanicle clustered within sheathing bracts, with or without leaflike lamiufe, the 

 lower ones usually distant. Glumes frequently dark-coloured or black. 



The genus is ahnost limited to the Old World and is chiefly Australian, but represented by «, 

 few species in the temperate regions of the northern hemisphere, in extra-tropical South 

 America, in South Africa, New Zealand, and in the Malayan'Archipelago. 



