■OahnM.] CLII. CYPERACE^. 1796 



bases, the inner bracts more glume-like. Spikelets mostly about 4 lines long, 

 with a single hermaphrodite flower. Empty glumes 7 or 8, the outer ones 

 narrow, acuminate or aristate, with rigid ciliate keels passing into a few inner 

 shorter very broad and obtuse membranous ones, the flowering glume still 

 thinner and shorter at the time of flowering. Stamens usually 6, rarely 5 or 4. 

 Style-branches 8, all simple or one divided nearly to the base. Nutovoid- 

 -oblong to almost globular, often 3 lines long, slightly mucronate with the base of 

 the style, very smooth, shining and brown-red when fully ripe, at first closely 

 enveloped in the 2 inner glumes, but at length forced out and remaining long 

 suspended by the filaments persistent at the base of the nut and caught at the 

 ■other end in the points of the longest empty glumes. — Boeckel. in Linnsea, 

 xxxviii. 344 ; Lamjwcarya aspera, R. Br. Prod. 238 ; Cladium asperum, F. v. M. 

 Fragm. ix. 12. 



Ilab.: Keppel Bay, Broadsound and Shoalwater Bay, R. Brown; Bockingham Bay, Dallachy ; 

 Hoekhampton, O'Shdnesy, Tllozef, Ipswieh, Nenist; Moieton Bay, Leichhardt. 



Also the same or a very closely allied species iu New Caledonia and the Fiji Islands; and 

 the Sandwich Islands, G. globosa, H. Mann, or G. mucronata, Boeckel. may also be not really 

 -distinct. 



Hexalepis scahrifolia, Bosekel. in Flora, 1875, 118, from Brisbane River, Amalia Dietrich, 

 appears to me to be that state or variety of G. aipera, in which the nuts of a straw-colour or 

 rarely dark-brown and opaque are not yet forced out of the spikelets and remain sessile and 

 'erect. In some Instances specimens from Queensland with straw-coloured nuts, and others 

 with brown shining exserted hanging nuts have been sent as belonging to this species. — Benth. 



2. Gr. melanocarpa (black fruit), B. Br. Prod. 239 ; Bmth. Fl. Austr. vii, 

 413. Stems usually several feet high. Leaves very long, with involute scabrous 

 margins, ending in long subulate points, the floral ones gradually smaller, all 

 rigid and erect. Panicle narrow and dense, often above 1ft. long and interrupted 

 • at the base, very compound, with erect spikelike or thyrsoid branches, the lower 

 •ones 2 to 4in. long, the upper much shorter, very narrow when in flower, broader 

 and denser when in fruit. Smaller bracts shortly aristate, those under the 

 spikelets almost glume-like. Spikelets very numerous, more or less clustered, 

 scarcely above 1| line long. Outer empty glumes about 3, acuminate and 

 almost aristate, 1 or 2 inner ones also empty, and the flowering glume thinly 

 :membranous, almost hyaline, obtuse and closely enveloping the single her- 

 maphrodite flower, without any second male flower or inner empty glume. 

 Stamens 3 or rarely 4, at length much elongated. Nut small obovoid or ovoid, 

 black and shining when quite ripe. — Cladium melanocavpum, F. v. M. Fragm. 

 ix. 13. 



Hab.: Near border of N.S.W. about Wallangarra. 



'3. G. psittacorum (parrot-like), Lahill. PI. Nov. liolJ. i. 89, t. 115 ; 



Benth. Fl. Aiistr. vii. 418» " Yerer," Cape Bedford, Roth. Stems stout, 

 terete below the inflorescence, 4 to 8ft. high. Leaves long, with very scabrous 

 involute margins, ending in long subulate points. Panicle often 1 to 2ft. 

 long, very black, oblong or thyrsoid, often one-sided, very compound, the 

 numerous branches spreading drooping or nearly erect. Lpwer sheathing 

 'bracts produced into long subulate scabrous leaflike points or laminae, the 

 ■upper ones gradually smaller. Spikelets exceedingly -numerous, 2 ta 3 lines 

 long. Empty glumes in the typical forms 10 to 12, very obtuse or rarely 

 almost acute, the outer ones very small but gradually increasing in length ; 

 flowering glumes much smaller, thinly membranous and very obtuse, the 

 'innermost one often minute. Flowers 2, but so close together as to appear 

 •within the same glume, outer one male and very precocious, the inner 

 one hermaphrodite and fertile. Stamens in each 4 or rarely 5 or 6 ; filaments 

 moderately or very long after flowering. Style-branches usually 4 of equal 

 length, but one of them equally divided so as to appear 5. Nut ovoid, hard. 



